


The Night Children

by Calais_Reno



Series: The Irregulars [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Baker Street, Boys In Love, Crime Fighting, Don't copy to another site, Gangs, Growing Up Together, M/M, Orphans, Teenagers, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2020-10-25 09:29:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 50,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20721989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calais_Reno/pseuds/Calais_Reno
Summary: “This is my domain, Watson, my realm— my patch, to put it in language you will understand. I am sovereign on this street. It was rather impertinent of you to encroach on my revenues.” He laughed out loud. “Trying to pinch a copper’s purse! I’ll forgive you just for the laughs I’ll get telling that story."From the memoirs of John H Watson, MD.In Victorian London, a young Sherlock Holmes is the leader of a band of Irregulars whose territory is Baker Street.





	1. The Runaway

I had a friend once, when I was a boy. You will not think this is remarkable; all boys have friends. But he was remarkable, and I loved him.

I was not yet ten years old when I suddenly became an orphan. My mother and younger sister had died not even a year earlier, of scarlet fever. By that time my older brother had left home to join the navy, and we no longer heard from him. In order that I might be useful, my father sent me to live with my mother’s brother in Leeds, a man with nine children of his own to support. If I expected to eat, I must work, my uncle said. He sent me to a textile mill, where I worked six days a week for up to fourteen hours a day. Every day I ate, worked, slept in the mill, seeing my uncle’s family only on Sundays, when I was allowed home.

I was made a mule scavenger because of my small size. My job was to go under the machine and clear the wastage. The machine did not stop as we did this, so we had to mind moving parts as we worked. I aspired to become a piecer, though that job was not much safer. The machines were so loud, we often did not hear the screams when some girl caught her hair in the machinery. Twice I saw girls scalped in this way.

Months went by with little change, only new children to replace the unfortunates who had lost fingers or arms. The work was tedious, but falling asleep would earn you a beating, at the very least.Any thoughts I’d once had about education were gone. Thoughts of any future at all were lost in the dull pounding and whir of that infernal machinery.

My father, a petty criminal, was shot while committing a burglary some weeks after I began working in the mill. This information was reported to me by my uncle, who did not seem very surprised that this had happened. He lectured me for half a Sunday on how Hamish Watson had always been a bad man, and his sister would never have married him except that she was already with child— my older brother— and the family had, quite properly, refused to support her wickedness.

Soon after this, there was an accident at the mill. A boy I’d worked alongside— we called him Loony— got caught in the machine and was killed. It was horrible, the amount of blood. I’d never seen so much gore in one place, not even at a butcher’s shop. It went all through the machine, staining yards of fabric. They had to shut the mill for hours to clean it up. I remember his body when they brought him out, crushed and mangled. I’d crawled under those machines to clean as often as Loony had, we two being the smallest and fastest of the boys. I will never forget how terrified I was every time I went underneath, seeing the machine whirring and spinning above me.

We worked an extra shift that day, to make up for the lost hours. After I saw Loony’s body, though, I thought of nothing but running away. I had no idea how I would live, but starving would be better than a death by machine.

This part of my history is not very interesting. I relate it only so that it can be understood what my life was when I slipped out of a window late one night and fled across the countryside.

Childhood is short. For some, it lasts only as long as somebody cares. At ten, I was an adult. By twelve, I had forgotten my childhood.

I lived on my wits, stealing food, hiding, and eventually stowing away on a train that took me to London. When I started the journey, I had no destination in mind, and little idea of geography, having barely learned to read and write in the two years I’d spent in school. I knew of London, and thought it might be large enough to have a greater variety of opportunities for me. There were things I knew I could not stoop to, but I’d learned a thing or two about burglary from my dad, and was used to making do until something better came along.

London seemed to go on and on for miles. I ran errands, but the telegraph office would not hire anyone as young as me, so I had to remain a free agent. There were gangs, usually run by youths who bullied younger boys into working for them, taking a percentage of their income and in return providing some safety. I avoided these, seeing that life as little better than working for a boss in a mill.

For a while, I worked in a laundry, but I was not very fast or efficient at this work, and was let go. I was too big to be a chimney sweep, and had sworn I’d never work in another mill. There were other jobs worse than these, but I still had a bit of self-respect. 

I awoke each day thinking only of my belly and how to fill it. Filching an apple or a turnip from a stall was easy enough, but I dreamed of bread and meat and gravy.

I began to pick men’s pockets. For a good payoff, this required a nicer neighbourhood than the ones where I ran messages for shop keepers and clerks who paid me in pennies. I found such an area in Marylebone. There was a large park nearby, Regent’s, and a mixture of better houses and shops. The park was where I slept, though I knew I would need to find some place less exposed when the weather grew colder. Men frequented the park, some of them looking for a fuck, others providing that service. Some of them sized me up, but I had already resolved not to consider it.

The hungrier I was, the bolder I became, and less careful. One afternoon I had just slipped my hand into a man’s pocket and lifted his purse when he turned and grabbed me by the collar, suspending me above the sidewalk. He looked me in the face and laughed. “Do you know who I am, boy?” 

It was then that I noticed the badge. Like an idiot, I’d just put my hand in a copper’s pocket. Not a regular bobby, but a plain-clothes detective.

I stammered an apology. He kept his hand on me. I’d never been caught before (I was fairly good), butknew that I would most likely end up in a workhouse crawling under machines again or making blacking for boots. My fate had come full circle and could no longer be avoided. I let go of the evidence, heard coins jingle on the sidewalk.

I tried not to cry, but felt so desperate that I didn’t know what to do. “Please,” I said. “I didna mean…”

“He’s mine, Lestrade,” said a boy’s voice. “Let him go.”

The boy who spoke was taller than me, and a bit older, though it was hard to tell how much older. His voice had begun to break and deepen, and though his cheeks were still smooth, the hair on his upper lip was darkening. I guessed he was fifteen. He was wearing an odd cap at a jaunty angle. It looked as if the sides had been folded up and tied in a bow at the crown. His face was dirty, and his equally grubby hands were holding the lapels of a frayed jacket that might have once been elegant at some point long before it came into his possession. He wore long trousers, thin and sagging on his slender frame, held up by red braces. The way he stood and spoke and regarded the policeman so boldly lent him the air of a gentleman of reduced means disguised as a street Arab.

“Holmes,” said the policeman. “Your boy just dipped his fingers into my pocket.”

The boy named Holmes smiled. “He’s a neophyte, Lestrade. Not yet fully edified.”

I didn’t know what a neophyte was or what edifying might entail, so I was quiet. Obviously this boy was a gang member known to the police, but who had some sort of arrangement that protected his boys. He looked a bit young, and I assumed he was a lieutenant of the real gang boss. His accent was a bit posh for a street urchin, I thought, but guessed that this might be part of his guise.

“Well,” Lestrade growled, looking me as if I were a piece of refuse he’d found stuck to his boot. “Edify him then.”

He tossed me to the ground and stalked away. I gaped after him for a few seconds, then jumped to my feet, ready to run.

Holmes caught me around the neck. “Quit kicking or I’ll break your clavicle.”

I stopped. I hadn’t heard of a clavicle, but I was sure I didn’t want mine broken. He gave me a good shake, let me go, and spun me around so he could see my face.

“Scotland,” he said. “Or Northumberland?”

Speechless, I just stared.

“Are you dumb, or just stupid? Answer my question!”

“N-n-orth—”

He nodded. “Northumberland. Thought so. Orphan, runaway. You’ve been doing factory work, but not for some weeks.” He took my hand, touching the calluses that hadn’t yet disappeared. “You’ve been stealing because you’re too proud to beg. What I want to know is, what have you got to be proud of? Hm?”

“N-nothing.”

He gave my face a whack with the back of his hand. “You’ll address me as Mr Holmes. Or _sir_. Now, explain to me why you thought it was a good idea to put your hand in a peeler’s pocket while you’re trespassing on my territory.”

“I was hungry,” I said, remembering belatedly to use the proper address. “Mr Holmes, sir, I was hungry.” _His_ territory, he’d said. 

He narrowed his pale eyes at me. “What’s your name?” These were eyes that could see through any lies I told, I realised.

“John, sir. John Watson.”

He waved his hand, scoffing as if this information might be incorrect. “Boring. I’ll think of a better appellation later.” He grabbed my arm. “Come on, then.”

“What are you going to do with me?” My voice squeaked a bit. I’d never been timid, but Holmes was unlike any boy I’d ever met. I was at once both frightened and fascinated.

“I’m going to get you some grub,” he said. “I know a lady who’ll feed you.”

It didn’t even occur to me to argue.

Slinging an arm around my shoulder as we walked, he began instructing me on the neighbourhood. “This is my domain, Watson, my realm— my patch, to put it in language you will understand. I am sovereign on this street. It was rather impertinent of you to encroach on my revenues.” He laughed out loud. “Trying to pinch a copper’s purse! I’ll forgive you just for the laughs I’ll get telling that story. That was Sergeant Lestrade, by the way, and you should be grateful it was him. Gregson or Dimmock would’ve heaved you into the chokey. Take care not to show them any discourtesy. Cross them once, and they’ll be inexorable.”

He had an odd manner of speaking, tossing street cant together with the vocabulary of an Oxford don, seeming part guttersnipe and part professor. I had never heard anyone talk this way; I was mesmerised.

As we walked, he began to point out the various shops and their keepers. “Over there, that’s Angelo’s. He’s an Eye-tie, but makes good grub, which is always free for Sherlock Holmes and his associates. And that’s the chemist’s shop, name of Barkley. Bit of a grouch, but he owes me, so he won’t bother you once he knows you’re one of mine. The green grocer is there, Samuels. You must never steal from Old Sam. He keeps apples for us boys, and not just the ones too old to sell. That’s Hoffman’s next door; he gives his day-old bread to Mrs Hudson. Sometimes pies, too.”

I took all this in as well as I could, but my hunger, combined with my sudden terror at being caught, had given way to weariness, and I had to pay attention to my feet in order to keep up with Holmes’ long legs and not trip. We made our way down Baker Street, a quiet neighbourhood lined with rows of terraced houses, stopping in front of a door numbered 221B.

“This is the home of Mrs Hudson, our benefactress. We’ll go around back since she doesn’t appreciate boys tracking mud into her hall.” He led me down an alley a few doors down and around to the back door. Before he knocked, Holmes turned to me with a frown. “I hope you have a few manners, Watson. You will address her as Mrs Hudson, or Ma’am. Never Hudders. You’ll take what she gives you and thank her for it before you put one bite in your greedy little mouth. Do you know how to use a fork and knife? Watch me if you don’t. You’ll leave nothing on your plate, and not ask for seconds. She’s a finer person than you, but she hasn’t a lot to spare. Keep your mouth shut unless you’re spoken to. You’ll answer her questions and thank her again when you’re done eating. Savvy?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

He smacked my head, knocking my hat off. “And take off your lid. You ought to know better.” He removed his own strange headgear, revealing dark, curly hair, and knocked on the door.

The lady who opened the door was not ancient, but neither was she young. Being so young myself, I had no skill in identifying adults by age. I had not known my own grandparents, or even their names, but she was what I had imagined a grandmother would look like. Her hair might have been a vivid red once, but now was shot through with white. She wore it in a long braid wrapped around her head, showing the vivid ends, while the whiter hair curled around her forehead. She had a rosy face, not much wrinkled, which bore an expression of such kindness as I had rarely seen.

Smiling broadly, Holmes swept into a deep bow. “Good afternoon, Widow Hudson.”

“Sherlock Holmes!” She beamed at him, then turned to look at me. “Have you found a new recruit?”

Holmes straightened up and frowned at me, then gave me a shove. “Genuflect,” he hissed.

I quickly bowed, picking up my hat as I did. “Ma’am,” I said.

She smiled and bent down to study me more closely. “A wee thing, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“And you look hungry.” She glanced at Holmes, who nodded.

“Thankee, Ma’am. I am a bit peckish.” I felt Holmes’ eyes on me. “But I’m not begging, Ma’am.”

“What’s your name?”

“John Watson, Ma’am.”

“Welcome to my house, John Watson,” she said, inviting me through the door.

I was ushered into a kitchen. Holmes stood beside me, keeping an eye on me as if he didn’t trust my manners. The room smelled wonderful, rich and savoury.

“Hands,” she demanded. Holmes obediently stuck his hands out for inspection. I did the same. She shook her head. “There’s a bar of soap and a basin out back. Don’t come back inside until your fingernails are clean.”

Holmes put the soap in the basin, pumped in a bit of water. We both scrubbed for a while, but our fingernails were still black.

“Look,” said Holmes, and showed me how to scrape my fingernails along the bar. Then he applied the brush to his fingertips. By the time we had the soap out from under our nails, they looked almost clean.

We returned to the kitchen and presented ourselves for scrutiny. Mrs Hudson nodded and told us to sit. While she stirred a big pot on the stove, Holmes regaled her with the story of my capture by Sergeant Lestrade.

“Poor little mite!” she said, patting my head. “You must have been scared out of your skin.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said, looking at the pot and inhaling the aroma.

I might have licked my lips, because Holmes pinched my leg as soon as Mrs Hudson turned her back. “Don’t drool, fool,” he said.

Soon I was sitting before a bowl of stew with pieces of actual beef, as well as potatoes and carrots. I could smell rosemary. Remembering my manners, I said, “Thank you, Missus. You’re very kind to me. I’m sorry for being a thief.”

Holmes grinned at the lady. “He’s a hardened criminal, Mrs H. We’ll have to keep an eye on him.”

“Oh, Sherlock. He’s just a baby.”

Mrs Hudson set down a thick slice of bread next to my bowl. I was trying to follow Holmes’ example, spooning the stew from the bowl to my mouth. If I hadn’t been afraid of him swatting me, I would have simply picked up the bowl and put it to my mouth. I noted that he was using his bread to sop up the gravy, and did the same.

There was a knock at the rear door, and the lady went to open it. I heard the voices of other children talking excitedly. They appeared at the kitchen door, hats in hands, obviously schooled in manners that did not come naturally to them. Mrs Hudson examined their hands, told them to wash, and began ladling more bowls of stew. They returned quickly, presented their hands, and were allowed into the kitchen. There were four of them and just two chairs, but they sat in pairs, half of a bottom on each seat.

“This is Doc,” Holmes said to them. It took me a moment to realise that he was talking about me. He grinned. “That’s your new name. I’ve just decided.”

“Why does he get to be Doc?” asked a thin boy with lank hair drooping over his forehead.

“Because he’s smarter than you, Dick.”

“Don’t call me that,” Dick objected. “My name isn’t Richard. Call me Anderson.”

“His real name is Philip,” said a curly-haired boy with dimples. “He hates being called that.”

“I’ll just call you Dicky, then,” said Holmes. “This is Wiggins and the Professor. And that’s Sally.”

I hadn’t realised that the curly-haired boy was a girl. With her hair cut short, dressed in knee-trousers held up by braces, she looked like a boy. She frowned at Holmes. “Just Sal.” She shared a seat with Dicky.

“You can call me Mike,” said the Professor.

“I’m Anderson,” Dicky said. “Don’t call me anything else.”

“Okay, Dicky,” Holmes said. “We’re the Baker Street Irregulars, Doc.”

Wiggins was almost as tall as Holmes, and skinny. Mike kept squinting at me when he didn’t have his nose down inside his bowl. He was skinny like the others, but had a round face with rosy cheeks.

“Michael, have you lost your glasses again?” Mrs Hudson asked.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. They broke.” He fished a pair of broken spectacles out of his pocket and handed them to her.

“I’ll see if Mr Weber can fix them,” she said. “You need to be much more careful.”

Dicky was staring at me. “Where’d you find him?” he asked Holmes.

“Never you mind,” said Holmes. “He’s a notorious pickpocket. Been evading the coppers for weeks now. I thought he might come in handy.”

“Sherlock,” said Mrs Hudson. “I hope your Irregulars are not branching out.”

“No, Ma’am,” he said. “We’re in police work now, and have to keep up to date on what the criminal classes are doing. Our principles remain high.”

“You’re police?” I hadn’t said a word, but now my bowl was empty and the last crumb of bread eaten. “I thought you were a gang.”

“You didn’t tell him?” Anderson said. He frowned at me. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen,” I said.

Holmes laughed. “Liar. You’re twelve.”

“Thirteen,” I said. ”The pale eyes narrowed at me and I ducked my head. “Almost.”

“He’s a baby,” Sal said, wiping her bowl out for the second time and stuffing a piece of bread into her mouth.

“You're a boy?” Professor squinted at me. “I thought you were a girl.”

“He needs a haircut,” Wiggins said. “Can I do it?”

“Where will he sleep?” Anderson smirked at me. “There’s no space. We’re all sharing mattresses as it is.”

“Except Holmes,” said Professor.

“Sal should have her own mattress.” Anderson nudged her. “Right? She’s a girl.”

“Don’t you bother about that,” she said, scowling. “Anybody touch me, I’ll give ‘em what for.”

Wiggins shrugged. “There’s six of us. Two for each mattress is fair.”

“I can sleep on the floor,” I suggested.

“No,” said Holmes. “You’ll sleep with me.”

After we’d eaten, Mrs Hudson made us lie down and kip for a while, as she put it, in order to _digest._ Because I’d eaten a larger meal than I had for many weeks, I felt sleepy. The others led the way down a stairway into the basement, where I saw a room with mattresses on wooden-slatted frames. Wiggins and Mike took one mattress, while Sal and Anderson lay on another. The third mattress, larger than the other two, belonged to Holmes.

Sal lay down and closed her eyes. Prof shuffled a deck of cards and dealt them out to Anderson and Wiggins.

Holmes indicated that I should lie down on his mattress. I must have fallen asleep at once. When I awoke, the others were all asleep, except for Holmes, who was reading a book by the light of a small lamp.

He must have heard me stir, because he spoke to me. “Can you read, Doc?”

“A little,” I said.

“Come here.”

I scooted over next to him and looked at the page he was reading.

“Tell me what it says.”

I had learned the letters of the alphabet and knew the sounds that each made well enough to sound out signs and notices. This, I had assumed, gave me the right to claim literacy. When I looked on that page, though, I felt as if I were reading hieroglyphics. The letters I recognised, but they made no words that I knew.

“The men—” I began, then hesitated. Already, the second word was unfamiliar.

“_Mental_,” he said. “Go on.”

Humiliated, I continued. “The mental feet…feeders…”

“Not _feeders. _The word is _features.”_

The next word began with the letter _d. _It was long. It also ended with a -_d. _I thought of all the long words I knew that began and ended with _d. “_Described?” I guessed.

“_Discoursed_. Continue.”

“Of as the…” These three words didn’t even seem to belong next to one another. The next word had the letter _y_ in it, not at the ending like normal words such as _body_ and _lady_, but in the middle. “Mr Holmes,” I said. “I’m afraid I cannot read this.”

“_Analytical_,” he said. “Do you know what that word means?”

“I do not, sir.”

“It’s a Greek word, Watson. It comes from _analysis,_ which means taking something apart in order to figure it out.”

“Like a clock?”

“That would be a literal example. Let me give you another example. When you met me, what did you notice about me?”

“You’re taller than me. You wear an odd hat.”

“It’s called a _deerstalker_ hat. What else?”

“You have red braces. You weren’t afraid of the policeman.”

“What did you deduce about me? I mean, what did those things tell you?”

I thought about this. It was funny how it just seemed natural to notice things about people, and not really think about what it meant. “You’re older than me.”

“Yes. I’m fourteen. And what else?”

“You don’t mind looking odd. You’re not afraid of talking back to policemen.”

“What kind of person doesn’t mind those things?”

“A person who’s confident. Maybe a bit rude.”

Holmes chuckled. “You have deduced correctly. What else do you observe?”

“I don’t know any more about you,” I said. “We just met.”

“True. Let me ask you a question. How long do you think I’ve been on the streets?”

I thought about my own experience. I’d been on the streets of London for less than a year, and had nowhere near the bravado of Holmes. “A few years,” I said. “But—”

“Go on.”

“You’re educated. You’ve been in school for years.”

“How do you know?”

“You use big words when you talk. And you can read this book. I was in school for two years and I can write my name and read signs. I can’t do anything like what you can do, so I think you haven’t been on the streets very long.” If he was fourteen now, he might have had six years of school.

“So, how long?”

“Two years,” I guessed.

“Five years.” He grinned at my reaction. “Almost six— since I was nine. At that point, I could read and write better than you, but I’d been an orphan since age six. I ran away when I was nine.”

“How did you learn to read so well?”

“I taught myself. And I didn’t mind what people thought of me. I found people who gave me books and helped me read them. I hawked newspapers for a while, calling out the headlines, but lost that job because I kept sitting down to read the stories. Mostly, I just started to use my senses to figure things out, learned to ask the right questions, and didn’t let anybody tell me I was stupid. It wasn’t my fault that my parents died, or that they were broke. It wasn’t my fault that the uncle who took me in ended up going to prison. I didn’t act humble, and people gave me some respect.”

“That’s… amazing.”

He laughed. “Once you can read, Watson, the entire world belongs to you.”

I felt stupid. My education had been haphazard, irregular, but I might have learned more while I was sitting in school if I’d known how important it was. “Would you… will you teach me?”

“Only if you want to, and if you are willing to work at it.”

“I am.” I stared down at the page, full of words that I did not understand. “Why do you call me Doc?”

“Because you’re going to become a doctor. Doctor John Watson.”

I had never thought of being much of anything beyond a millworker, or doing odd jobs, like my dad. I’d thought about all the things that money could buy, but never believed they were in my reach. “I don’t even know how to read. How’ll I become a doctor?”

“If you work at it, you’ll be able to read this book in six months and understand every word in it. After that you’ll read other books. By the time you’re seventeen or eighteen, you’ll go to university. The deans and professors will be impressed at you, a boy who’s taught himself so many things, and they’ll help you learn more. You’ll study the things they show you, and in a few years, you’ll be a doctor.”

“What about you? What are you going to study?”

“I’m going to study everything. I’ll learn about chemistry and biology and all the things I need to know.”

“Will you be a scientist?” I wasn’t sure what scientists did, but it sounded like those were the things Holmes liked.

“No. I’ll be like the man in this book,” he said, showing me the cover. _The Murders in the…_

I attempted to sound out the final words. “Is the story about murders?”

“Rue Morgue,” he said. “Yes, it’s about murders. Mr Edgar Allen Poe wrote it. I’ll read it to you, if you like. That’s how you’ll learn. Here’s what you do: you look at the words as I read, until your mind recognises them and you don’t have to sound them out. Ask questions when you don’t know something, and I’ll explain it to you. Then you’ll be able to read the words just like drinking water, without conscious thought that you’re moving your tongue and swallowing them. They’ll go directly into your brain and you’ll understand the meaning.”

I imagined drinking words off a page, quenching my thirst. “I would like that.”

“We’ll begin later. Right now, it’s time for patrol.”


	2. Appellations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watson finds his place among the Irregulars, helps catch a thief, and becomes a pirate.

_Patrol_ was something the Irregulars did every night, Holmes told me once we were on the street again. It was just beginning to get dark.

He sent Mike and Anderson to one end of the street, and stationed Wiggins at the Marylebone corner, with Sal, who would be the _runner,_ relaying information between the two ends. “She’s the fastest of us,” he explained. “That’s where Barkley’s is, and I have a feeling about tonight.”

“A feeling? Why?”

“His dog disappeared. He keeps it in the shop at night while he sleeps above. Today when he let Caleb outside, he didn’t come back. We looked for him earlier, but no luck. We’ll keep a close watch tonight. Wiggins ain’t the sharpest tool, but he’s got good eyes, and he knows how to stay out of sight. He’ll send Sal if he sees anything.”

He and I wandered up and down, observing several other shops that were, as he put it, _ripe for a burglary_.

“What are we looking for?” I asked.

“Anything suspicious. We keep an eye on shops that’ve been robbed, houses that’ve been broken into. We know who belongs on Baker Street, the shop keepers and people who work here, and the people who live here. If someone we don’t know seems to be loitering about, we watch. Of course, we don’t let anyone know we’re watching. Nobody suspects us. We’re just kids, looking for odd jobs and going through the bins for things we can sell.”

“Do the police ask you for help?”

“They didn’t at first. But after I solved a string of burglaries, Lestrade started checking in with me. He knows what we’re doing, and he recognises us. He nabbed you because he didn’t know you.”

“Do you fight with other gangs?”

“Not usually. They steer clear of Baker Street because of us. They don’t like that we’re in league with the peelers, but normally they don’t look for trouble.”

“And you thought this up on your own?”

He grinned with pride. “I did. I have a good eye for detail and a memory like a camera. I’ve seen enough that I know when something is off. Wiggins and I started it. The others I recruited from the neighbourhood.”

“Are they all orphans?”

“Wiggins has been without kith or kin or place to lay his head longer than I have. We first teamed up to pick rich pockets, as you were doing, but I didn’t fancy winding up in the chokey, so I devised a new way to keep our bellies full. It was Mrs Hudson who set me straight. She caught me stealing buns from Hoffman’s, took me home and fed me up, lecturing me about how a boy smart enough to steal ought to be smart enough to get a livelihood within the law. She said I could sleep in the basement as long as I stayed out of trouble. I brought Wiggins over, and then we found Old Prof. Lestrade busted Anderson for pickpocketing and asked me if I would let him into my cadre. He knew Sal, and invited her.”

Most of the shops were closed up by now. We walked along, and Holmes greeted a few people. At last we made ourselves comfortable in front of a pub, leaning against a lamp post like a couple of delinquents.

“Speaking of cameras,” he said. “Did you know it was a Chinese bloke who invented the camera?”

I didn’t think we’d been speaking of cameras, but I was too in awe of him to say so. And Iknew nothing about cameras, so all I said was, “Honest?”

“It’s true. It wasn’t like the camera that French bloke Daguerre made, though. It was really just a box with a little hole in it. He discovered that light rays go straight, which is why photographs come out upside down, ‘cause the light going through the lens reverses the image. Someday we’ll use cameras to take pictures of crime scenes, because a camera sees everything without making judgements. A camera can’t lie.”

“Why did they call it a camera?”

He looked at me, amused. “Where do you think names come from?”

I shrugged. “I ‘spose people just call it what it looks like.”

“Do I look like a Sherlock?”

“I guess so. I never met any Sherlock before.”

“You probably won’t, either. My mother chose it. She went to a play and fell in love with the lead actor. His name was Phineas Sherlock.”

“It must have been a good play.”

“It was a terrible play. I saw it playing at a theatre once and snuck in. It didn’t have any pirates or swashbucklers or even a sword fight.” He gave a derisive snort. “It was a bloody _romance._”

“So why _did_ they call it a camera?”

He looked down at me, shaking his head. “You’re a persistent little bloodhound, aren’t you? All right, I’ll satisfy your curiosity— and maybe teach you something at the same time. The word _camera_ is Latin. Half of the words in English are runagates from other languages, like French and Latin and Greek. In Latin, _camera_ means box. And the first cameras, like I said, were just boxes.”

“Why do the French and the Latins give their words to us?”

“Romans, you mean. The Romans spoke Latin, at least until the barbarians ran ‘em over and made them all start speaking Goth. The French don’t _give_ us their words, we _take ’_em. If somebody invents something new, like a thing that can make a photograph, they notice that the Romans had a word _camera_ which they’re not using anymore, since they’re all dead. So the inventor tells people, _it’s a camera. _And everybody is impressed because the Romans ruled the world, just like England does now. And they called them _photographs_ because that’s Greek for _light picture_ and sounds much better than calling them that.”

“I didn’t know that words had stories,” I said. All this information was running over my brain like a horde of barbarians breaking down the gates of Rome. I suddenly wondered why we were on _Baker _Street, if there was only one baker, and he was named Hoffman, not Baker. And why it was a _street_ when there was already a word _road. _And why my own name was _Watson_, when I was the son of a man named _Henry. _It was like a light had gone on in my head.

“Why’d you rescue me?” I had been wondering this ever since he’d taken me under his arm and led me to 221B.

He smiled. “Do you want to know what I’ve deduced about you?” When I nodded, he continued. “You don’t mind stealing, but won’t sponge. That tells me that someone gave you a sense of yourself as a person. I’m guessing it was your father, who taught you to steal. He did it to support his family, and saw that as a kind of justice. You don’t like begging because the people who are most generous are also poor, and it doesn’t seem right to ask them for anything when they’ve hardly got enough for themselves. If you look at it that way, stealing is just a method of redistributing wealth that always seems to end up in the hands of those who’ve got enough already.”

I’d never heard anyone talk this way, or explain me to myself so clearly. I had never thought of stealing as wrong when you’re hungry, and I suppose my father had taught me that through his actions. We never talked about it. My dad wasn’t a man to lecture; he simply did what he had to do. I knew he hated sending me to my uncle, seeing him already burdened with family, but he didn’t want me to be a thief. He hoped for better things for me. Still, I think he wouldn’t have disapproved of what I’d done to escape the workhouse and survive on the streets.

Holmes went on. “Many boys would get cheeky with a copper when caught, but you didn’t. I think your dad taught you that, too. You’re sharp, and you see how to get around people. Still, I don’t think you would mind scrapping, if you thought it was necessary. You didn’t fight me because you knew you weren’t in danger, and you were curious about me. For all that you’re a small pup, you would have fought me if I’d hurt you. This tells me that you’re less of an idiot than Dicky, shrewder than Sal, braver than Prof, and have more ambition than Wiggins. That’s why I took you in.”

I was still trying to piece together the puzzle of Holmes, so I ventured another question. “What happened to your parents?”

“When I was just a pipsqueak, we had money. My dad worked in the city, doing things that didn’t require sweat, and we lived out of town in a fine house with servants and candelabras and a big, curved staircase. But then my mum died of consumption, and my dad shot himself. Not a hunting accident, whatever they said. And it turned out that we didn’t really own any of those fine trappings, not one candelabra, or even a single candle. And there wasn’t any money at all. My older brother was shipped off to a distant cousin, and I was pawned off on my uncle Rudy. He turned out to be as big a crook as my father, and when they found out, he went to prison. Before he went, he took me aside and said, _Sherlock, money is expensive.”_

“What does that mean?”

“It means he was good at getting money, but not so good at keeping it. And having a lot of money isn’t easier or better than having just enough. That’s my philosophy. I aim for genteel subsistence.” He took a pipe out of his pocket and a pouch of tobacco. After stuffing the leaves into the bowl of his pipe, he struck a match and lit it, puffing in and out until a cloud of blue smoke surrounded us.

At that moment, Sherlock Holmes became the epitome of worldliness to me. He spoke like a philosopher, wore his castoffs like a king, and smoked like a man. And he knew that it was more important to know things than to have things. He cared little for money, as long as he had the absolute freedom to do as he pleased. But he wasn’t a rogue. He didn’t prey on people, he protected them. And he had seen things in me that I hadn’t known were there.

“Can I?” I had never smoked, or even wanted to until that moment.

He shook his head. “You’re still a runt. It’ll stunt your growth, and you can’t afford that. At your age, I was a good half a head taller. I don’t know what’s been stunting you, besides heredity, but Mrs Hudson will dose you up with cod liver, and then you won’t get rickets. You’ll soon start growing.”

“What’s rickets?”

“Malnutrition,” he said. “_Mal_ means bad, and _nutrition_ is food. If you don’t eat the right food, your bones get soft and bendy.”

The crowd in the pub was growing louder, so we began walking again.

We heard footsteps coming from behind us at a run, turned, and saw Sal approaching.

“That bloke we saw loitering about earlier— he’s at the back door of Barkley’s, picking the lock.”

Holmes didn’t hesitate. “We’re on our way. Run down the street and send Prof and Dicky to help. Then find the nearest constable.”

Sal nodded and took off. We ran, too, towards the corner of Marylebone and Baker Street, where the chemist’s shop stood. When we were a house away, we stilled our steps and quietly approached Wiggins’ hidden vantage point. We could see the door was ajar, and a light moving within.

“Too young to be a real cracksman,” Wiggins whispered. “If he’s trying to get the safe open, it’ll take him a while.”

Holmes nodded. “The coppers will be here by then. Let’s spread out, in case he decides to cut and run.” He turned to me. “Just give a shout if he does, and keep an eye on where he goes. Don’t try to take him on single-handed.”

Holmes and Wiggins took the front and back of the building, leaving me to watch the least likely escape route, the side alley. We each took our post and prepared to wait. There was no place to conceal myself in the alley, so I pretended to be loitering there. I wished that I had a cigar or something to make myself look older, even if it might have stunted my growth.

We waited for what seemed like a long time. Then quite suddenly it became clear that the cracksman was more proficient than Wiggins had guessed him to be, that he’d completed his job and decided to avoid the front and back ways out of the place. He came out a small window into the alley, turned, and saw me.

I froze.

“What’re you looking at, Tiny?” he hissed. “Shouldn’t yer mum be tucking you into bed just about now?”

I had no reply for this, but it angered me to be called a baby. I let out a war whoop that would have done a Cherokee proud and plowed into him head-first, knocking him to the ground. Holmes and Wiggins, hearing my cry, ran to either end of the alley.

The thief had the common sense to scoop me up from the ground, where I had landed, and secure me against himself. My feet dangled several inches above the ground, so running was not an option.

“Let him go,” demanded Holmes, advancing.

Trembling, the cracksman held on to me with one arm, his bag of plunder with the other. “I’ve got a knife,” he said. I heard the snick of a blade opening.

Wiggins and Holmes exchanged a look.

“Look,” said Holmes. “We can let you go if you don’t hurt the kid. You’ll only make things worse for yourself if you harm a child.”

Not realising that Holmes might have been stalling for time, angry at being called a child, I kicked back into the thief’s groin as hard as I could.

He let out a yell of pain and dropped me. I grabbed the bag before he could change his mind. He made as if to tackle me, but just then Sal, Prof, and Dicky arrived, with Sergeant Lestrade at their heels, followed by several constables. They swarmed around the culprit, brandishing their clubs.

Holmes grabbed me with surprisingly strong arms and hauled me out of range of the battle. Letting me loose, he began to pat me and feel my limbs, looking for blood or injury.

“I’m not a child,” I growled in the lowest voice I could manage.

“I know that,” he said. “But even big boys can get hurt.”

I huffed and let him continue his exam. “You’re treating me like a child.”

He sat back on his heels, regarding me. I saw the panic in his eyes then, the fear of what might have happened. “I just needed to be sure you were all right,” he said.

He had known me for less than a day, but he was afraid. No one had ever worried about my welfare, not since my father.

“I’m all right,” I said, suddenly weary. “He didn’t hurt me.”

He sighed and stood up. “Good. Usually, my recruits last longer than a day. I’d hate to ruin my record.”

“Your record stands,” I said. “I’m fine.” I gave him a smile to show I wasn’t scared.

He didn’t return my smile. His grey eyes held me like a vice. “If you ever do anything so stupid again, I will thrash you myself. Do you understand?”

I nodded, feeling like a fool. I’d only ever had myself to look out for, and had let my anger over the thief’s insults make me rash.

“It’s not just you,” he said quietly. “We’re in this together, and we have to think of more than ourselves. Never provoke a man with a knife, Watson. If you think that was a smart thing to do, you truly are a child.”

Sorrowfully, I nodded again. “I’m sorry, Holmes.”

Dicky, Sal, Prof, and Wiggins joined us.

“We missed everything,” Anderson complained, glaring at Sal. “You should have come for us sooner.”

Prof was huffing a bit. “Can’t say as I’m sorry to have missed it.”

Wiggins nodded. “You should have seen Doc kick that crook’s bollocks.”

“Indeed,” Sherlock said, aiming for, and missing, a haughty tone. “We have a bull pup in our midst, Irregulars. May I present the small, but mighty— Doc Watson!”

The others cheered, and I, though humbled by Holmes’ reproof, preened a bit, something I’d never had an opportunity to do before. Nobody had ever thought me worthwhile or cared what happened to me. Nobody had ever presented me or cheered for me.

Lestrade approached. “Good work, boys.” He nodded at Sal. “And girl. I just wanted to remind you not to go putting yourselves at risk.” His eyes landed on me. “You just call us and we’ll take the criminals down. All right?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” said Holmes. “We all understand.” He gave me a severe look. “Don’t we?”

I joined in as the others echoed him. “We understand, Sergeant.”

We walked up and down Baker Street, a small gang that people would consider potential ruffians, young miscreants looking for mischief. The others talked excitedly about the arrest. I just tagged along, happy to belong.

That night, Holmes read more of _The Murders in the Rue Morgue_ to me until he decided we should go to sleep. I lay awake, listening to Old Prof and Dicky argue about the nightly card game until Holmes told them to be quiet and turn out the light. In the dark I could smell his pipe tobacco.

I felt tears gather in my eyes. Turning towards the wall, I relived the events of the evening. More than anything, I’d wanted Holmes to trust me, to think he’d made a good choice in inviting me into the Irregulars. Now I could see how unwisely I’d acted. I was showing off, trying to be a hero, instead of thinking how I’d endangered us all. Holmes and Wiggins might have had to save me, tackling the cracksman. I know how quickly a knife fight can become deadly, have seen men bleed out in minutes from a well-aimed blow. I imagined Holmes grappling with the thief, stabbed, bleeding…

Quietly, I sniffled. At once I felt a large hand on my head, ruffling my hair.

I soon fell into the rhythm of life on Baker Street. Stamford and Wiggins had regular jobs, but Mrs Hudson watched their hours carefully. Sal and Dickie and I did odd jobs for merchants in the neighbourhood, and Holmes did as well, though most of the time he had other tasks. His interests were as eclectic as his vocabulary. He sometimes just sat and studied the people who passed, noting their clothing, observing what shops they went into. If I asked him, he could tell me things about them. Though he didn’t know a man, he could tell his trade by his hands, his face, his clothing. Sometimes he tested me to see what I observed, but it was almost as if his eyes were different from mine, able to see more and understand it.

“It’s like reading a book,” he said. “The Book of Life. At first you have to sound out the letters. After a while, it’s like breathing.” 

I breathed deeply, eager to learn.

When I was a small boy, I had a few school chums, boys I called by their first names and played games with. At the mill, there was little interest in friendship, no time for games. I knew a few boys by name, and a couple of girls as well, but a grey wash of misery hung over us all, driving us into solitary lives. When we worked at the mill, we did not sing or talk to one another because of the deafening noise of the machines. We ate together, all of us silent, with our eyes on our own portions. It was not a place where friendship was at all useful.

All of the Irregulars had known misery, but I found a genuine camaraderie there unlike school or the mill. Even in other gangs I had known I saw little loyalty, only fear. A gang might pretend to be a makeshift family, but the leaders terrorised the members, binding them together with an anger that told them they would never escape. I observed the Irregulars as they went about the day, and tried to understand what was different, why I felt I had found my home.

Holmes was obviously the leader of our little band, but he did not act like any boss or teacher or leader I had known. Lecturing was not his method; he expected us to use our own brains to figure things out, and pointed out when we were in error. The Irregulars regarded him highly, but used their own common sense about most things. They accepted me on the say-so of their leader, but each did their own evaluation of me.

There are two things, I think, that separate a man from his fellow man, turn him into a savage. Take away his home, and he is exiled, solitary and desperate, viewing his fellow men as enemies. Take away his name, and he loses himself.

Mrs Hudson had given us a home; Holmes gave us our names. Not only did he provide the name _Irregulars_ for our band, each person received a special tag from him. The names he gave us were not labels. They were more like a new identity, something we hadn’t seen in ourselves. Whatever he saw in us, he named. The names he gave us meant respect, and love, and belonging. They meant we were a family.

Wiggins wanted to cut my hair, so I let him. He didn’t volunteer much about himself, but didn’t mind me asking him questions. His parents, always poor, had died of cholera, he said. He’d met Holmes after a few months of begging and stealing. Recognising that Holmes was clever, he’d stuck with him. He’d never been outside of London, but didn’t seem very curious about what might lie beyond. He thought he might like to become a barber.

Holmes had known Wiggins the longest. We often called him Old Wiggins; even though he was only a bit older than Holmes, he seemed like an old man at times. Slow to reach a conclusion, when he finally did it became unshakeable truth for him. He was not a talker or an arguer. Holmes alone called him Billy. “It’s what my mum used to call me,” he told me.

Mike was Prof because Holmes saw a future for him off the streets. Like Holmes, he loved to read, and if you asked him what he was reading, he would talk your ear off.

“It’s about a geology professor who goes down into a volcano,” he told me excitedly, showing me the volume he’d been immersed in for days. “He’s trying to find the centre of the earth, and there are prehistoric animals—”

Not a scrapper, he willingly did his part on patrol. He had seven or eight younger siblings, and his mum and dad had more or less turned him out, considering him old enough to fend for himself. He went home quite often to check on his siblings, giving them money when he could.

Anderson was not impressed that I’d kicked a crook’s bollocks. “You better listen,” he told me. “Holmes tells you something, you do it. We’re not in this for our own swagger. You should’ve let him handle that mug.”

I held my tongue, sensing that his own obedience to Holmes had been hard-won. There had been some antagonism between them, I sensed. He’d lived the first years of his life in a workhouse, he told me, and then worked for a chimney sweep until he was too big. That was when he ended up on the streets, picking pockets and going through skips for food. 

He clearly didn’t like his nickname. I asked Holmes why he called him Dicky when it annoyed him.

“Sometimes he acts like a dick,” he said. “If he needs a reminder, I call him Dicky. He gets the message. And I didn’t give him that name. Sal did.”

Sal Donovan was the last to join, just a few months before I showed up. Though she still insisted that I was a baby, she let me walk about with her sometimes. Her sister lived a few blocks away, in a nice building with several other girls.

“Why don’t you live with her?” I asked.

“She’s a whore,” she said without embarrassment. “Night is when she gets most of her business, so she started kicking me out when the johns began looking at me. Some men are freaks, look at little girls like they’d just as soon fuck ‘em. Lizzie wanted a better life for us, but couldn’t keep me around. I knew Dicky, and he brought me to meet Mrs Hudson.”

Sal had chosen her own name. Originally Sally, Holmes never called her that after she corrected him.

Holmes did not order the Irregulars to do anything. We debated, and he listened to our reasoning, calmly giving his opinion at intervals. When a decision was reached, he expected everyone to cooperate. He never did anything in anger, that I could observe, even when two or more of us were angry with one another, threatening to throw punches. He treated us like a family, not a club we could be ousted from or a job we could lose. There was never any question that each of us belonged at 221B Baker Street.

The weather turned cold and rainy, and I was glad I’d found a place to live before the rain turned to snow. It was truly a glorious existence, with Mrs Hudson seeing that we were fed, clothed and shod. I had a warm place to sleep, and duties that felt more like play than work. Soon all the shopkeepers and constables knew me, and I was trusted with odd jobs like the others. We went on patrols most nights, but Mrs Hudson insisted that we stay in when it rained so we wouldn’t _catch our death_. She kept us busy, having us do chores around the house, and insisted that we read every day.

“It’s a good thing that criminals are not so sharp,” Holmes said as we watched the rain come down one afternoon. “Otherwise they’d figure out that rainy nights are the best time to do their work, when we’re all stuck inside.”

I was finding myself more and more infatuated with Holmes. I remembered his panicked look and the way he felt me to make sure I was all right, and I felt a bit lovesick. I hoped it didn’t show. Holmes, however, never let on if he noticed anything. Everyday he sat and read books and newspapers with me, encouraging me to improve, and I worked hard at it, harder than I ever worked in school, just to prove he hadn’t misplaced his trust in my intelligence. He’d said I would be a doctor, and I was not about to let him down.

We generally slept during the afternoons, as I said, and went into the streets at night. Mrs Hudson worried about us, but under Holmes’ guidance, we were careful. By the early hours of the morning, we’d head back to Baker Street and sleep until breakfast.

At the end of September the warm weather suddenly returned. _Indian summer_, Mrs Hudson called it. She’d lived in America when she was young, and said that was what they called it. Wiggins wanted to put on war paint and play Red Indians, but Holmes had a better idea.

Our first stop was Old Sam’s, where we received a bag of apples too old to sell.

“Ammunition,” he said mysteriously.

He led us up to the park, to the lake where we’d seen people boating in the heyday of summer. Now, after days of rain and cold weather, it was deserted. The rental boats had been put in storage already, but a couple had been left out because they needed some repair. After checking that they were still seaworthy, we found enough oars to man two boats.

“I am the Pirate King,” Holmes declared, brandishing a wooden sword. “Doc is my ship’s surgeon and Wiggins is my lieutenant. Our vessel is the Black Skull. The rest of you are the Royal Navy.”

Anderson and Stamford looked at each other, clearly about to give arguments about who should be in charge of their boat, but before either could speak, Sal had grabbed the hat that Holmes tossed towards them.

“I’m captain,” she said. She pointed to Old Prof and Dicky. “You can be mates.”

Holmes claimed the larger of the two boats for the pirates. Sal began to argue that the Royal Navy would have a bigger vessel, but before she could make her case, Wiggins and I had clambered into the boat and each grabbed an oar. The earliest years of my childhood had been spent in a fishing village in Northumberland, where my dad had taught me how to handle a boat.

We distanced ourselves from the Royal Navy, who were still arguing about what rank they all were. “You’re a lieutenant,” Sal said to Prof, “and Dicky is an ensign.”

“Why does he get to have a higher rank?” asked Anderson.

Sal shrugged. “He’s older. Now get into this boat and start rowing.”

Both boats pushed off from the shore and the captains began to strategise, circling around one another and preparing to attack.

At Holmes’ command, we began lobbing apples at them. There didn’t seem to be any rules to the game, but we manoeuvred around each other, knowing that ramming our boat into the enemy was a sure way to end the game.

They lobbed apples back at us. We snatched up the ones that landed in our boat or floated nearby and hurled them back. For a while we did this back and forth, rocking our boats with the motion, until the apples began to turn to mush.

Holmes ordered us to row further out. I grabbed an oar. Wiggins hesitated.

“How deep is this lake?” he asked.

Holmes scoffed. “Why? Can’t you swim?”

“I can swim!” I piped up. I could do a credible dog paddle, at least. I was eager to prove myself a brave surgeon, but hoped actual surgical skills would not be needed.

“I never learned,” replied Wiggins. An apple hit him in the side of his head. As he fell towards starboard, our boat tilted and took on water.

The battle recommenced in earnest. Holmes pulled out our reserve apples and began throwing like a Gatling gun. Sal, with shorter arms, yelled for her crew to bring the boat closer. Hurling with all her might, she hit Holmes in the forehead with an apple, stunning him.

“Huh,” he grunted, struggling to retain his balance. Another apple found its mark and he went over the side, disappearing into the murky water.

“Holmes!” I cried and went after him, leaving command of the Black Skull to Wiggins, the landlubber. Holmes came up just as I reached the place he where had sunk.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “We’ll go under.”

He ducked down and swam under our boat. I followed. We could hear the others yelling. Sal was ordering her crew to make haste towards shore, having figured out our plan. As we approached their vessel, I spied an oar in the water and grabbed it, pulling hard. Anderson fell into the water.

Then the entire boat capsized and Holmes came up grinning on the other side. Sal, Prof, and Anderson clung to their vessel, cursing the pirates.

“Victory!” cried Holmes. I joined in. “Victory! Victory!”

We threw our arms around one another, bobbing in the water and cheering. Wiggins still sat in our pirate ship, keeping his distance from all the turmoil.

Angry yelling from the shore ended our celebration.

We were hauled out of the water, given a stern lecture by the Park Police, and escorted home by Sergeant Gregson, who threatened us with whatever he could think of, which wasn’t much.

Mrs Hudson had a harsher punishment for us: no more sweets for a month. It didn’t really matter, though, because we all came down with a terrible grippe, which kept us indoors for a week and a half. Nobody felt like eating sweets, much less playing buccaneers. Mrs Hudson fed us broth and toast.

This stint as pirates was our final hurrah on the high seas. We were the last buccaneers to sail the Regents Park Sea, and our adventure the last battle between the British Navy and the Dread Pirate Holmes. The boat house in the park improved its security and had a patrol regularly check that no unauthorised boats were taken out.

But we talked endlessly of our adventure. It became part of our legend. The Pirate King and his daring ship’s surgeon had earned their place in an Irregular History of Baker Street.


	3. The Violin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A somewhat Dickensian Christmas on Baker Street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It reached ninety degrees here today, and it felt good to write about snow. I hope you enjoy.

The snow and cold weather came for good in November, which meant less activity for us. Most of the Irregulars did odd jobs during the day for local shopkeepers, and I began to do this as well, running errands and making deliveries. The coins we earned were always handed over to Mrs Hudson, who usually gave us back some pocket change that we could spend on treats or save up for other things. She willingly acted as our banker, keeping separate accounts of our savings and spending. In this way, she taught us to manage money and encouraged us to work hard for the things we wanted.

Winter also meant less crime in the neighbourhood. We continued evening patrol, but did not stay out as late once the weather turned frigid.

“Petty criminals are like insects,” Holmes said. “They go dormant when it’s cold.”

He did not seem displeased with the change of criminal seasons. It gave us more time for study, he said, which we needed.

I have learned many things in my life, but Holmes was the person who taught me how to learn.

His interests were varied, but somewhat limited. He was good at math and loved chemistry. He explained to me how the Greeks had theorised that everything was made up of small bits of matter, and how there were only so many types of bits, which are called elements. I found this less interesting than drawings of skeletons, muscles, and organs, but he explained that the bits of air we breathe, when taken into our lungs, become bits of oxygen in our blood, and that the heart and lungs are just a factory for pushing oxygen around our bodies. This made me see connections I might have missed if I had just followed my own interests.

He knew about Plato and Aristotle, but thought they talked a lot of bunk and theorised that they’d been rich chaps who hadn’t needed to work for their grub and so could afford to sit around discussing philosophy. He enjoyed looking at plants and soil, and often pointed out how each neighbourhood had different trees and birds, and that the colour and consistency of soil varied from place to place. Once he described to me how a dead body decomposes, and what insects might help that process. I was both horrified and fascinated.

We spent a lot of time looking at the stars when we walked at night, when it was clear, but he was surprised when we read that the earth, which appears to us unmoving, was actually spinning on an axis and orbiting around the sun.

As we walked along Marylebone one evening, he reflected on this information. “I’m not sure if it changes anything,” he said. “We might be flying through space, but if we don’t feel it, how does it matter? The sun might be the centre of it all, but it still seems to come up in the morning and go down at night.”

I had to agree that it didn’t matter, but insisted that there were plenty of things that had no practical use, but were still good to know. As I tried to think of a good example, I noticed that he had stopped walking. His attention was focused on a small group of street musicians.

One was playing violin, another piping a flute, and a third plucking a small mandolin. My father, though mostly an oddjobber, had worked as a musician as well, often performing in the streets, though it didn’t bring much in. He played the guitar and the fiddle, but had to pawn the fiddle eventually. I coveted a small concertina that I once saw a boy playing, while another danced. Seeing those two collecting the coins that people dropped, I had obsessed for weeks about how I might make a living doing that.

The trio ended their piece and several people gave them coins. Holmes heaved a great sigh, and when I looked up at his face, I saw an expression of longing there.

He smiled down at me. “I had a little violin once. It was a present for my fourth birthday. My mother played piano, and made my brother learn as well. She hoped that I would learn the violin so we might play duets.”

The players began another song, this one slow and sentimental. We stood through this performance as well. Holmes was silent, and I cast looks at him from time to time, wondering at his expression.

“And did you?” I asked as the performance ended and the players packed up their instruments. “Did you play duets?”

“My parents died soon after I began learning. I brought the violin with me to Uncle Rudy’s and continued to practice, but when when he went to prison, people came and auctioned off the whole house and everything inside it.”

“But it was _your_ violin, not your uncle’s,” I said. “Why did they sell it?”

“Because I was a minor, and everything of mine belonged to my uncle.”

He’d told me about running away when he was nine. As a runaway myself, I understood what it was to leave home behind, never to return. I, however, had not owned much besides the clothing I wore. Like most poor boys, I’d never had a book or a toy, certainly not the concertina I’d coveted. Holmes had probably left behind many things he remembered with longing. I imagined the books especially were missed, but as a rich boy, he might have had toy soldiers, and marbles, and even a rocking horse. Once I’d looked in a kaleidoscope and wondered how such magical pictures could be formed. The device had been snatched from my hand by its owner, though, before I learned how it worked. I wondered if Holmes had ever owned one.

In the small cottage where I was born, Christmas gifts were unknown. If my father were lucky, he might buy some oranges and apples for us. My mother used to scrimp and save to buy a goose. In a good year, we might have a small pudding. In the bad years, we ate only potatoes. One of the few memories I retain of that time is my little sister’s excitement as I helped her peel an orange. That was a good year, but there were many worse that followed. Even so, we had no idea that we were so unfortunate.

Holmes had lost more than ever I had owned, and for the first time I was almost glad I’d never known a home where Christmas came with presents and fine clothing and a turkey. As I looked at his face, I could not help but imagine that he was thinking of what his life had been like before his parents died, and what it might have been now, had they not died.

And at once I knew what I would buy him for Christmas.

Where could one buy a violin? I found a music shop on Oxford Street and was horrified at how much instruments cost. The prices quoted for the best instruments made my head hurt, trying to imagine such a number of coins in one place. That there were people who could afford to spend that amount on a violin gave me some perspective on my own situation. I had always known that rich people were better off, but I had no idea of the scale of that difference. Even five pounds, the price of the shop’s cheapest violin, seemed to me like more than a person might save up in a lifetime, let alone the weeks between now and Christmas.

I thanked Mr Fiore, the shop owner, and turned to leave, feeling dejected. I had no other ideas, and felt a fool for not realising that a violin would be so expensive. All my visions of Holmes opening my present and the look of wonder on his face vanished.

“Have you tried the pawnbroker’s?” Mr Fiore asked me as I put my hand on the doorknob. “People often wish to get cash for instruments they no longer play. Mr Kramer will no doubt have a few violins.”

I had not been in Mr Kramer’s shop before, but I followed Mr Fiore’s directions and headed there at once. It was a bit south of Oxford, tucked away in a side road called Gray Street.

I had been in pawn shops before, and to some extent understood how they worked. People brought in items they no longer needed, and were offered a price, depending on the condition of the item. The pawnbroker would make a profit by marking the item up, but generally it would still be much cheaper than new. Owners could buy back what they pawned, but had to the marked-up price. Jewellery was a popular item to pawn when cash was needed quickly, and generally it kept its value. I was not sure about violins.

Mr Kramer had several instruments on his wall, but no prices displayed that I could see. I expressed my interest in a violin, and he took it off the wall so I could examine it.

“You can play it if you like,” he said.

“I don’t know how,” I replied. “Is it a good one?”

“Oh, it’s an excellent violin, a beautiful instrument,” he said.

It looked very old, I thought. “How much?”

“New, this violin might cost fifty quid,” he said.

My heart fell. My face must have shown this, because he smiled and said, “I can sell it to you for three.”

This was still more than I could raise in a few short weeks. I chewed my lip, thinking of how many hours of labour three pounds represented, and how I could work so much without Holmes noticing. Even full-time shop boys only earned a few shillings a week.

“You can make a counter-offer, you know,” said the pawnbroker. He was a young man, smart-looking. A successful business man, I could see. I wondered what Holmes would deduce about him.

I considered a counter-offer. I might earn three shillings in a week, if I were diligent and sought out opportunities. It was four weeks until Christmas. “Twelve shillings.”

Still smiling, he shook his head. “Two quid is as low as I’ll go.”

“I can’t get so much,” I said. “Not by Christmas. Thank you anyway.”

“Wait,” he said as I turned to go. “It’s for a Christmas present?”

I nodded.

“Someone special?” At my nod, he grinned. “Look, I can make a deal for you, just because I like your face. I can tell you’re an honest, hard-working boy, and you’re generous as well. Do you have a job?”

“Just errands and deliveries. Odd jobs.”

“I could use a boy like you,” he said. “Come and work for me. If you work a few hours each day between now and Christmas, I’ll let you have the violin.”

I thanked him profusely and agreed to start at once.

Every morning I ran out the door after breakfast and went straight to Gray Street. It was far enough away from Baker Street that I had to leave early, and didn’t return in the afternoon until the others were getting ready for patrol. Mrs Hudson did not ask, but started tucking a sandwich in my coat pocket before I left each morning.

Holmes did not ask, either, which was odd. I had expected him to question me about my activities, and had made up several possible stories to tell him. That he did not ask was a relief, but it also puzzled me. Wiggins was also working longer hours at Rafferty’s, the cabinet maker where he was apprenticed, and Prof was picking up more jobs, hoping to afford a decent Christmas for his brothers and sisters. Since they were working more, I hoped Holmes would see nothing suspicious in my hours.

Mr Kramer had me sort through goods that people brought him. I soon caught on to the economics of the trade. Some items would be marked up more than others. He did not yet trust me to barter with customers; I had a face that was too artless for this type of work, he said.

“Take my advice, son,” he advised me with a grin. “Never gamble on cards. With that face, you’ll lose every cent you have.”

I kept the place swept and the goods neatly displayed. Sometimes he would ask me to deliver items that were too bulky for customers to take. He never let me touch the money, and I understood that a businessman must be cautious about trusting his assistants.

The people who came into the shop interested me, and I tried to do as Holmes frequently did, to deduce their circumstances from their clothing. There were a number of regular buyers whose names I soon learned, some of them brokers dealing in specific goods, like silver or gold, or used clothing. Mr Kramer usually gave them a special price for buying in quantity. Many of the others who came in to sell items were dressed like servants, neat but drab. Occasionally a wealthy person would bring in an item, but most of the sellers were working class. Some bought rags for recycling into paper. It appeared to me that there was an entire economy of repurposed and reused goods that had its own price index and margins.

I noticed that some of the people who brought goods seemed odd. A man dressed as a labourer brought in a necklace and a ring. A girl in a maid’s uniform had some silver candlesticks priced. I suspected that there was a certain amount of trade that was illegal. When I asked Mr Kramer, he just shrugged.

“People die,” he said. “If they haven’t made a will, or even if they have, the servants often get first pick, whatever they can lay their hands on.” He laughed. “Don’t look at me like that, boy. We all get what we are bold enough to take.”

I wasn’t so naive that I did not realise this. After all, my father had done illegal things and justified them in the same way. Still, I wanted to be an honest man now, even if it meant that I was poorer than less honest men. I remembered Holmes telling me that having money wasn’t his goal, that money didn’t make a person happier. Having enough was what he aimed for, and I agreed.

I said nothing about these under-the-table deals. I intended to work up through December 24, earn the violin, and then part ways with Mr Kramer.

He worked me hard, and after the first week began to keep me into the evenings. I didn’t complain. Our deal, I realised, did not specify how many hours I would work, so I could hardly protest if the job took more than I had realised. When I returned to Baker Street each night, I felt exhausted. I began to arrive too late for patrol, which I dearly missed as it meant spending time with Holmes. I reminded myself how happy he would be when I gave him his present.

Mrs Hudson worried about me, I could see. She packed extra food in my pockets, and saved supper for me each evening. “You’re a good lad,” she told me. “But you mustn’t ruin your health just for a bit of money.”

“It’s just until Christmas.” That holiday seemed further and further away.

The next day, I asked Mr Kramer how much I’d earned. It was just days until I would take home the violin, but I wanted to know how much my labour had been worth to him.

He sighed and looked distressed. “I have to tell you, Johnny, that business hasn’t been so good this season.”

“But we always have buyers,” I said.

He shrugged. “We’re rather over-stocked right now, and all the goods I have in the shop cost me money to keep. It’s an investment, all of these things you see, and unfortunately it is not paying off well right now. People get stingy before holidays, thinking of their goose and holiday finery, and they bring in things to sell. I take ‘em, but they won’t move until after the holiday, when things go back to normal. I know it seems contrary to logic, but it’s part of the annual cycle.”

I glanced up at the violin. “Will you still give it to me?”

“If it hasn’t sold,” he said.

This became my new worry. Every customer who came into the shop in the days leading up to Christmas was my rival. I watched their eyes as they perused the shelves and hoped that they would not consider a violin the perfect present for their loved one.

It was after six on December the twenty-second when I returned from picking up goods at another shop and froze in horror as I saw an empty place on the violin’s shelf.

Mr Kramer shrugged. “Sold it for three quid,” he said.

Tears formed in my eyes. “But I’ve worked for almost a month, Mr Kramer. You promised it to me.”

“Sorry. As I said, this is a business, not a charity. The buyer had cash.”

I rubbed my sleeve across my eyes and turned away. “I’d like my earnings now, Mr Kramer.”

“You’re quitting?”

“I was working only for the violin. Now that it’s gone—” I bit my lip, refusing to cry in front of him. “I’ll just take my pay and go.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. He opened the cash box and took out some coins. I held out my hand and counted.

“This is six shillings,” I said. “You owe me more than this!”

“You said twelve shillings, boy. That was what you offered me. I’m giving you six because you haven’t completed your part of the bargain. You said you’d work until Christmas. Tomorrow is Sunday, but you would have worked Monday, which means you still owe me a day’s labour. I’m giving you half because I’m a generous man.”

“You’re a cheat,” I said vehemently. “You can’t dock me half for just one day.”

“Sue me,” he said, grinning. “Or come back to work Monday.”

I took my coins and ran all the way back to Baker Street.

When I reached Marylebone Street I had to walk up and down for a while because I was crying. I didn’t want anyone to know how I’d been fleeced, working weeks for less than I might have earned doing odd jobs with local merchants. I had only myself to blame. The others would laugh at me, and I didn’t think I could bear that now. I sat for a while in the park, wondering what I could give Holmes. He didn’t expect anything, and probably hadn’t anything for me, but I’d wanted to surprise him. My present would be the look on his face.

When I felt more composed, I opened the door of 221B and slipped inside.

Mrs Hudson heard me, of course. She took one look at my face and pulled me inside her flat. “You’ve been crying, love. Tell me what’s happened.”

My composure cracked and I began to sob. She simply held me and made clucking noises until I could speak again. I told her the whole tale.

“Oh, love, you didn’t have to do all that. Sherlock doesn’t expect that from you.”

“I know, but I wanted to give him something real, something he wanted. Because—” My throat clenched and the tears began to flow once more.

“I know why,” she said. “Don’t you worry. He doesn’t need a present to know that you love him.”

She put a bowl of soup in front of me and made me eat. When I had finished the last drop, she planted a kiss on my forehead. “Now, you go downstairs with the others and have a rest.”

“Aren’t they out on patrol?”

She smiled. “They went out this afternoon, very mysterious. I think they were planning to shop, but they didn’t say. When they came home, they went downstairs right away and told me to not to come down.”

I felt sad then, that I had missed out on all their planning. They probably were getting something for Mrs Hudson, and maybe Lestrade as well. I’d missed all the fun of Christmas and had nothing to show for it.

“You go on now, John. They’ll be happy to see you.”

There was no way to sneak into the room unnoticed, so I stood in the doorway for a moment, hoping I didn’t look as depressed as I felt. They had pulled the table between the cots and were watching as Prof counted a small pile of coins.

“Doc!” cried Holmes. “Come here at once. We need you.” He patted the place next to him on the bed. “Rather than buying presents for one another, we’ve decided to pool our resources and get something nice for Mrs Hudson.”

“We’re getting her—” began Dicky.

Sal put her hand over his mouth. “It was my idea!”

Wiggins said, “It’s a hat.”

“For church,” added Stamford.

“An’ it looks like a bird,” said Sal. “It has feathers.”

“Can I see it?” I asked.

“That’s the problem,” said Holmes. “We’re short a few bobs. So we’re now trying to decide between two other ideas. Wiggins and Dicky want to get her a fascinator.”

“A what?”

“It has feathers,” Wiggins informed me. “Not a hat, but sort of perches on the head like one.”

“Why’s it called—” I began.

Holmes shook his head. “Don’t even ask. There is no answer when it comes to women’s millinery. Sal and Prof want to get her an opera hood, which is like a shawl, but you wear it over your head, like a cowl.”

Dicky scoffed. “Mrs H don’t go to the opera. Why’d she want a thing to wear to one?”

“An’ she don’t need a fascinator either,” said Sal. “But it’s not about getting something she needs. It’s about getting her something she wouldn’t buy for herself. Something special.”

Holmes added, “I don’t care either way. We’ll let Doc cast the deciding vote, then.”

I fingered the six shillings in my pocket, their original purpose gone. Laying them on the table, I said, “Is this enough?”

They all stared. Sal let out a low whistle.

“Where’d you get that?” Dicky asked.

I shrugged. “Odd jobs.”

Holmes studied my face. He hadn’t said anything, but I wondered if he could tell that I’d been crying. He must have known I’d been working these past weeks. “It’s enough,” he said quietly. “Thank you, Watson.”

I nodded.

At this point a young Stamford sibling came pounding down the stairs and breathlessly announced, “Mum’s having the baby!”

Prof jumped off the bed and ran after his brother. “Sorry!” he called down the stairs. “Gotta go!” We heard the front door slam.

Mrs Hudson called down the stairs, “Lady and gentlemen, it’s time for bed! Lights out!”

Sal stood. “I should go to my sister’s tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“I’ll walk you there,” Dicky said.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” said Holmes, blowing out the candle. “We’ll have to wait until Monday to buy the hat.”

I lay in the darkness, the unhappy events of the day weighing on me like a blanket of sweaty humiliation. I bitterly recalled the shame of being tricked. No, I had allowed myself to be made a fool of, and deserved the lesson it had taught me. Mr Kramer was right about me. I expected others to deal honestly with me simply because I was honest. He was just a businessman, I understood, but his refusal to pay me the entire twelve shillings made me realise that I had made a bargain with a devil.

I may have sniffled a little, thinking about it. Holmes sighed in his sleep and rolled over, wrapping an arm around me.

In the morning there was church. Prof hadn’t come back yet; nor had Sal and Dicky. Holmes suggested that Sal’s sister had been in a good mood and offered to let him sleep on the floor rather than walk home in a blizzard.

“Blizzard?” I said, sitting up.

He was peering out one of the half-windows that our basement room had. “It was snowing last night, but it’s stopped now. We’d better get some brooms and clear the pavement.”

We dressed and hurried outside, ready to work. The air was crisp and clear and bitterly cold. Wiggins soon joined us in pushing snow off the path, making a way for people to pass by. Soon we were warm and sweating.

Mrs Hudson served us a breakfast of eggs, toast, and coffee. I wrapped my hands around the warm mug, inhaling the aroma, and counted my blessings. I had a home and a family now, and had been able to contribute to a present for Mrs Hudson, the person most responsible for giving me those things. Giving Holmes a present and ignoring the others might not have sat well with them.

Mrs Hudson was putting on her old bonnet, inspecting us to see if we were neat and clean enough for church. “We must pray for Mrs Stamford’s new baby,” she said quietly. “And for the others, who will have less to eat now.”

I had prayed for people at various times in my life. When I was small, I’d mostly prayed for sweets and toys. I’d prayed for my mother and sister when they fell ill. None of those prayers had been answered; I never had anything much beyond the most basic needs, and my family had fallen apart. I’d prayed for my dad’s soul after he was killed, and asked God to remember that he was just trying to support his family. There were altogether too many poor people to pray for all of them, but Stamford was my friend, and his family struggled more than most. I hoped he wouldn’t have to leave us and go to work full time to support his siblings.

We walked behind Mrs Hudson to church, each of us smiling to ourselves, imagining the new hat she would wear in two days. We went to our usual pew and sat, listening to the organ prelude. I had never spent a lot of time in churches, but Mrs Hudson insisted that we attend every Sunday, and as there was no work on that day, it did not feel like a great sacrifice. It was a least an hour when I could let my mind wander, though more than once I’d fallen asleep, only to have Holmes poke a finger into my side. Today I felt fidgety listening to the lessons. Holmes had mentioned that we could go up to the park after dinner and have a proper snow battle with forts and ramparts, like castles, and I was thinking only of fun. The others might not return in time, but even if it was just the three of us, there would no doubt be others building their own forts, and we could have our battle.

Holmes elbowed me out of my reveries, and we rose to sing a hymn, _In the Bleak Midwinter_. My voice was beginning to change, and I warbled a bit as I sought the notes. _What can I give him, Poor as I am? _My devotion meant something, I thought. Though it was not as impressive as a violin, it was all I had to offer.

Sal and Dicky were at Baker Street when we returned. Sal was upset because her sister had gotten into an altercation and been thrown into gaol. She would say no more about it. Mrs Hudson talked to her for a long time, shooing us boys away.

We did not see Stamford, but went to the park and began to build a fortress worthy of the Irregulars. An epic snow battle with other neighbourhoods ensued.

The following day, I thought about going back to Kramer’s and putting in some hours just to get my six shillings, but decided there was no point. The violin had been purchased, and I no longer had enough to buy even the cheapest instrument.

The Irregulars, minus Stamford, trooped to the milliner’s shop and purchased the hat for Mrs Hudson. It was truly a work of art, with purple and taupe feathers and a beady-eyed paper mâché bird that looked like it might take flight if you moved too suddenly.

“They had ones with real dead birds on them,” Wiggins said. “But they cost too much. An’ Mrs H loves birds. She wouldn’t want anybody killing a bird for a hat.”

We spent the rest of the day running errands for Mrs Hudson, staring at the displays of sweets and toys in the shop windows, and throwing snowballs at one another. This was the kind of day I loved, where we could have fun together and not be pressed by work. I’d worked so many hours over the last month that I had almost forgotten the joy of doing nothing. We stopped and listened to a group of street musicians, and I felt the sadness rising in my chest again.

Holmes linked his arm through mine and pulled me away from the music. “Let’s go up to the park and watch the skaters.”

None of us were young enough to believe in Father Christmas still, not as a real person who carried gifts in a cloth bag and went from house to house spreading cheer. When we returned from the park, however, we found a flurry of activity in the kitchen. Neighbours were coming and going, leaving bags of apples or potatoes, loaves of bread, mince pies, several chickens and a small goose. All of these things were being packed in hampers, along with knitted mittens, hats, scarves, some crackers and a few small toys.

“It’s for Prof’s family,” Sal told us. “His dad’s in debtor’s prison again and his mum just had another baby. Everybody on Baker Street is giving something.”

Letting out a whoop, Dicky rushed through the door, his thin face red from the cold. “We get to be Father Christmas!”

“Who’s going to cook all of this?” I asked.

“We are,” said Mrs Hudson. “We’re relocating our Christmas dinner to the Stamford’s house tomorrow. We’ll go to church in the morning, then head over there and make our feast.”

I remembered what Christmas used to be like, before my family died — everything happening too fast, over too soon. Then it would be just a memory for another year, each Christmas falling short of the last, until finally there were no more Christmases. On Baker Street, the holiday having been resurrected, I tried to savour each small moment— the snow fort, the feast, the look on Mrs. Hudson’s face when she lifted the lid off the hat box. She exclaimed with joy at the outrageous hat, set it on her head at once.

I tucked each memory away like a precious treasure. One day, I might need these small joys.

By the time all the little Stamfords had been fed and presented with small gifts, and had run themselves ragged with joy, by the time Mrs Stamford had wept, and thanked us and blessed us, by the time Mrs Hudson gathered us and led us home, at that moment we were all content with the quiet wonder that Christmas had arrived, was now departing, and had left us all feeling grateful for what we had.

As we rounded the corner onto Baker Street, singing and laughing and dragging the little wagon full of Mrs Hudson’s pots and pans, we spied a figure standing at the door of our house. Two figures— Mr Lestrade and another man. We approached.

“Merry Christmas, Mrs Hudson,” Lestrade greeted us. “And to my Irregulars as well.”

I stared at the man who stood beside him, then ducked my head.

Mrs Hudson spoke first. “Thank you, Mr Lestrade, and the same to you. A happy Christmas to you, Mr Kramer.”

The man tipped his hat and gave us a nervous smile. “Indeed, Mrs Hudson. Blessings of the season to you and your… erm… family.”

“Would you gentlemen like to stop for a piece of pie?” Mrs Hudson asked. “I believe we have a couple slices left. Perhaps you’ll step inside?”

“Oh, no thank you, ma’am,” Mr Kramer said. “I just stopped by to, erm… well, I was going over my books, year-end you know, and discovered that I’d shorted Johnny… a wee bit.”

I could not speak, embarrassed for the others to know how I’d been fooled.

“Really, Mr Kramer?” Mrs Hudson’s voice was amused, but there was an edge to her good humour. “And you came to pay him what he’s due?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He glanced at Lestrade. “But cash being in short supply this week, I’m afraid I’ll have to pay him in goods, if he’s willing to accept…” He revealed a bundle he’d been holding under his arm. “Johnny, if you will accept this.”

It was obvious what it was. “Thank you, Mr Kramer,” I said, taking the bundle.

He nodded and again tipped his hat to Mrs Hudson. “Well, I’ll be on my way, then. Merry Christmas to you all.” He walked away quickly, swallowed up by the darkness.

“I believe I’ll have that piece of pie, Mrs Hudson,” said Lestrade.

We all piled into the entryway, pulling off coats and scarves. The others looked curiously at my package.

“I believe that Father Christmas has made a late stop on Baker Street,” Mrs Hudson said. “Go into the sitting room, all of you, and see what he’s brought.”

There were crackers, which we all pulled at once, immediately setting the paper hats on our heads and blowing the tin whistles. There were humbugs and lollies and comfits. Mrs Hudson had made us all wooly hats and scarves, and there were coins and paperback books for each of us. Lestrade had a special gift for Holmes, a pocket lens that must have cost him quite a bit. Holmes held it reverently, smiling as he slid it out of its leather case.

“What about that?” asked Anderson, pointing at my bundle. I hadn’t forgotten it. As long as I had been imagining what Holmes’ face would show when he finally saw it, now I could barely bring myself to open it.

Slowly I pulled the brown paper from it, revealing a somewhat battered case. The others leaned in as I flipped the clasps and opened it.

It was a violin, but not the one Mr Kramer had promised. Even I could see that it was a much finer one, used, but as nice as the one Mr Fiore had shown me. At least five pounds, I thought, feeling awed to hold it. I turned it over, looking for flaws in the wood. There were a few dings, but it had obviously been well-cared for.

Sal broke the silence. “You play the violin, Doc?”

Wordlessly, I looked into Holmes’ face. His eyes wide, he seemed unsure whether to smile or weep. Never before had I seen him like this, wordless and wondering.

I set the instrument in his hands. “Holmes knows how to play.” My voice sounded strange and hoarse. I blinked and felt tears on my eyelashes.

Still staring at me, he took the violin. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“Go on,” said Wiggins. “Play something.”

“It’s been a while,” he said, smiling shyly now as he tucked it under his chin. “I’ll need to practice a bit if I’m not to offend everyone’s ears.”

Raising the bow, he drew it across the strings and began tuning it. Then he started to play a melody, the notes tentative at first, then more confident. When it comes to music, I am no judge of technique or talent, but listening to him play, I felt as if my heart had wings.

_Hark, the herald angels sing,_

_Glory to the new-born king…_

When his fingers were too sore to play more, he simply held the instrument, stroking the wood gently and smiling at me. Mrs Hudson brought out a pachisi board and we set up to play. Since only four players were needed, I sat outside the kitchen and listened to Mrs Hudson talking with Mr Lestrade.

“I believe that Mr Kramer has redeemed himself,” Mrs Hudson was saying. “That old Scrooge.”

Lestrade laughed. “Thanks to the scolding you gave him.”

“Really,” she huffed. “Such a vile thing to do. I’m glad he recognised his error.”

“He recognised quite a few errors, Mrs H, as soon as I pointed out that many of his priciest goods had been reported stolen by their owners. Your tip and Holmes’ detective work helped me solve a number of robberies.”

“Well, you were kind to accept the man’s word that he had received all those items in good faith. Nothing honest about Mr Kramer, but at least he knows someone is watching now. Thank goodness the judgement of souls is not left to the likes of you and me, Sergeant.”

“Amen, Mrs H.”

Holmes carefully wiped his violin with a cloth and laid it gently in its case. He had not stopped smiling since he’d played. When he finally set it on the bookshelf and climbed into bed next to me, it was late.

“It’s beautiful, John,” he whispered in the darkness.

“I wanted you to have it.” There was so much more I wanted to say, but I couldn’t find the words to express even a small part of it.

Then he leaned towards me and I felt his lips brush my forehead. “Thank you,” he whispered again. “Merry Christmas, John.”

“Merry Christmas, Sherlock.”


	4. Our First Murder

“A murder is what we need,” Holmes announced one night as we walked down Baker Street. “It’s boring around here. A murder would liven things up. Preferably one with clues that are not very obvious.”

“Might liven things up,” I agreed. “But not for the victim.”

“_Mon Dieu!_” he exclaimed, pulling dramatically at his hair. “_J’ai ennui! Je veux un murder_!”

We’d started reading _Monsieur Lecoq_, but it was slow going. Holmes could make French sound sophisticated, but in my mouth it sounded like a duck trying to bark with its mouth full of toffee. While we walked patrol, Holmes tried to figure out how to say things in French. Mrs Hudson had promised to find us a dictionary when she saw we were learning, and eventually acquired both a French and a German dictionary for us. We amused ourselves by looking up words and making each other guess the meanings. Occasionally we would check how to say things with Mr Reynard, the jeweller, who was educated and had lived in France.

“J’ai fame,” I replied. This seemed like an important thing to be able to express, should we ever find ourselves hungry in France.

“Tu as _faim_,” he corrected me. “You’re always hungry, Doc, but no matter how much you eat, you’re still small. _Tu es petit, mon cher Jean_.”

“I’m growing,” I said. “Je mere grand.”

He chuckled. “I think you just said your mother is big.”

We were on lower Baker Street, crossing Blandford Street, when Holmes grabbed my arm.

“What’s that light?” He gestured towards a vacant house. “That place has been empty for months.”

I shrugged. “Somebody moved in, then.”

“Watson,” he said, shaking his head. “Must you always go for the obvious, lazy answer? If you would only observe, you would be asking yourself whether we’ve seen any one move in.”

“I don’t know.”

He gave me a look of disappointment. “We would have noticed, yeah? Moving house is an event on this street. People talk about it. And that one’s been empty for months, maybe years. Since we didn’t notice, I suggest that nobody has moved in. Something nefarious might be going on in there.”

“That’s not Baker Street. And we’re not always watching,” I objected. “They might have moved in when we were asleep this afternoon.”

“Easy enough to get an answer,” he said, turning his steps onto Blandford.

The house was one of several which was set back from the street. The others were dark, but obviously lived in; the vacant house had an ominous look, even on the gaslit street. It had rained earlier, but now the sky was clear and the full moon had risen, giving us some additional light.

Holmes raised his arm, stopping me from walking across the lawn. “There may be footprints,” he whispered. He pointed to a wheel track in the soft dirt. “A cab has been here.”

He continued to study the ground, cursing that we hadn’t brought a lantern. I was staring at the front of the house.

“The front door is open,” I said.

He looked up. “So it is. Let’s see who’s in there.”

I held his arm. “Maybe we should get a copper.”

He gave a dismissive huff. “If there’s been a crime, I want to be first on the scene. We’ll call somebody once we’ve had a look.”

“How do you know there’s not somebody inside?”

“Someone _is_ inside.” He pointed at the ground. “One person. Two pairs of boots went in, only one came out.”

“What if he has a gun?”

Holmes considered this for a moment. “Did you hear any gunshots?”

“No,” I admitted. “But—”

“Maybe it’s just an old tramp looking for a dry place to sleep.”

“And the other man?” I asked. “ Why did he leave?”

He sighed impatiently. “It’s a capital mistake to make deductions without facts. Since most of the facts are currently inside the house, I’m going in. Maybe you should wait our here, though, if you’re scared.”

When he put it that way, there was no way I was _not_ going inside. I had fought to prove myself as brave as any of the Irregulars, and wasn’t about to act like a crybaby now. “I ain’t scared,” I growled.

He led, and I followed him through the door. We paused, listening, just in case someone was still inside, then proceeded down the hall. Our footsteps echoed hollowly. The rooms were empty of furniture, covered in a thick layer of dust, and moisture had loosened the garish wallpaper so that it peeled back in strips from the walls. I tried to imagine the rooms full of people, but all I felt was an eerie and forlorn emptiness. No one had been inside this place for years, I thought— until tonight.

We followed the dim light that we had spotted from the street into what must have been the dining room. The stump of a red wax candle flickered from the mantel, casting shadows on the walls. This was not what spooked me, however.

The body of a man lay on the floor, his limbs twisted in some final agony.

“_Mon Dieu_!” Holmes knelt beside the body.

I hung back, not sure if I wanted to join him. “That bloke’s dead.”

“A sound analysis, Doc, but I was hoping you’d go further.”

“Cor, look at his face,” I said, awed by dead man’s expression of agony. “What do you suppose killed him?”

He shook his head. “No idea.” He felt around the body. “I don’t see any wounds.”

“But there’s blood on the floor,” I pointed out.

“Not his.” He slipped his hand into the man’s pocket and removed a card case and two letters. “Enoch J Drebber, of Cleveland. Looks like Mr Drebber was getting ready to sail back to the states with somebody named Joseph Stangerson.”

“Maybe one of ‘em killed the other,” I suggested, aiming to be less obvious and lazy. “They were traveling together. But why come to a vacant house to have a quarrel?”

He shrugged. “Two men were here,” he said, replacing the card case and the letters. “They argued, perhaps. This man is most likely Drebber, but we don’t know if Stangerson is the murderer. See, there are footprints in the dust. One of them was standing, the other pacing. Maybe Drebber attacked, wounded the other, and then…” He frowned. Still kneeling, he leaned over the body and sniffed. “Poison, I think.”

“Why would he take poison?”

“Think about it, Doc. What could make you take poison?”

“Not anything in this world,” I answered truthfully. “Nor anybody.” I didn’t know what death by poison might feel like, but the look on the man’s face told me that his death must have been horrible.

“No, use your imagination. What if somebody blackmailed you? Or held a gun to your head?”

I shuddered. Holmes stood and carefully stepped back, avoiding the blood spots.

“Let’s get a copper,” I suggested.

He went to the mantle, took the candle in his hand, raising it to look around the room. His breath caught. “The blood—” he hissed. “Do you see those letters, Watson?”

I looked where he was pointing. By the flickering light of the candle, I could make out letters painted on the wall. “Crikey! Is that blood?” I gasped.

Just then we heard the front door open and heavy footsteps in the hallway. My first thought was that the murderer had returned. For a moment, my feet were frozen to the floor. Then I jerked free and prepared to run, but Holmes grabbed my arm. “Just the police. This is Jones’ beat.”

But it wasn’t Jones. The constable who entered the room was not one we recognised. Young, medium height, with broad shoulders. Though we made no effort to run, he grabbed Holmes’ arm at once. “I’ve got you!” he cried. “Now, don’t try anything.”

Holmes replied calmly, “Yes, you have us, constable, but I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake—”

“Shut yer mouth!” The constable growled. ”What were you doing in this house?”

“As I was about to explain, we saw a light inside and, knowing the place to be empty, came to find out who was here.”

“You came here to rob this gentleman!” He seemed very excited. “And then you killed him!”

“But we haven’t robbed him,” Holmes explained calmly. “If you will check his pockets, you will see that we have taken nothing. And you may search us as well. And how would we have lured him inside? We’re just a couple of boys.”

‘Yeah.” I nodded. “An’ he was already dead.”

Just then we heard another set of feet, unsteady, stumbling through the door. Whoever it was gibbered and sang loudly and drunkenly, something about Columbine’s Newfangled Banner.

“Oh, now what?” the constable growled. He gave us a sharp look and I thought we might get our chance to run if he decided to eject the drunk man, but he must have seen through our innocent looks. He cuffed us together with the darbies and dragged us down the hallway, towards the door. “On your way, man!” he shouted, pushing the drunk out the door.

Holmes made a noise of indignation. “Why aren’t you arresting him?”

“He’s just a drunk,” the constable said. “He’ll have to find his own way home.”

No longer singing, the drunk stumbled towards the street. Then he seemed to disappear into the darkness, walking more quickly. “Holmes…” I started to say.

“Where’s the cab?” Holmes turned to the constable. “They arrived in a cab. You have to look for it.”

“No time for that, now. I’m taking the two of you in.” He blew his whistle.

“Good idea,” replied Holmes. “I’d like to speak to Mr Lestrade. There are several things I need to point out to him.”

“He’ll be here soon enough. Unfortunately, you’ll be in the lockup before that.”

“Mr Gregson, then. I’ll speak to either one of them.”

The constable gave us a menacing look. “You can tell it to the judge,” he growled.

“Actually, we have a right to counsel,” Holmes replied. “According to the Prisoner’s Counsel Act of 1836—”

“Shut yer gob,” our constable said. The police wagon had arrived. Without ceremony, we were hoisted inside, still fastened together. The door slammed shut and we felt the wagon begin to move.

We were shoved into a cell with three other prisoners, two snoring drunks and a man who looked like he’d been in a fight. Sitting close together on the floor, we shivered a bit. I’d never been in a gaol before. I wanted to ask Holmes if he had, but I was afraid, the way the bruised man was glaring at us. I huddled against Holmes.

Holmes nodded at our cell-mate. “Sorry about your lady friend.”

His head bleeding from whatever altercation had put him in the chokey, the bruised man got to his feet unsteadily and came towards us. “What d’ye know about my girl?”

“You got in a fight with your friend, who was attempting to persuade the young lady that he was a better candidate for her affections.”

He gaped at Holmes. “I din’ see _you_ there.”

“I wasn’t. I just noted your trouser leg, and the way your left shoe is scuffed, and— never mind.”

The fellow loomed over us. “An’ what’re you in for, boy?”

Without flinching, Holmes replied, “Murder.”

The man backed towards the other side of the cell and sat down against the wall.

“It’s all right,” Holmes said, patting my arm. I began to relax. Being in gaol wasn’t something I had ever looked forward to, but having Holmes at my side made it marginally better. I tried to think of our room back at Baker Street, our comfortable bed and warm blanket. Soon I drifted off.

When I awoke, it was daylight, and I’d been sleeping on my friend’s shoulder. He was shaking me gently. “It won’t be long now,” he whispered.

“I have to whizz,” I said.

He indicated a hole in the corner of the floor whose smell announced its purpose. As the other prisoners were sleeping, it seemed a good time to take care of business. Being cuffed together complicated the procedure a bit, but we managed to unbutton our flies with only minor embarrassment.

When we’d relieved ourselves, we heard someone approaching.

“Bloody hell.” Lestrade stood on the other side of the bars. “What have you two idiots done?”

“Not murder,” Holmes replied.

He frowned. “Mrs Hudson’s practically had kittens worrying about you two.”

“We need to talk, Lestrade. It’s true we were at the scene, but we had nothing to do with it—”

“I know that, you simpleton.” He opened the cell door and used a second key to unlock the darbies. “I’m taking you fools home.”

“I examined the scene,” Holmes said as we were led out of the cell. “There are a few things you need to know. The murderer is a cab driver. He pretended to be drunk and came back for something he’d intended to take with him. I told your constable that he should be arrested, but the fool wouldn’t listen, letting the suspect escape.”

“Constable Rance acted as he’s been trained,” Lestrade returned.

Holmes gave a derisive snort. “Then you ought to revise your training, since it overlooks some very obvious—”

“Sherlock, the murderer might still have been in the house—”

“Clearly not. We saw his footprints leaving the house.”

“You oughtn’t to have touched anything. You and Doc might have accidentally destroyed some important evidence.”

“I know how to manage a crime scene, Lestrade,” Holmes scoffed.

“I see,” said the inspector. “And where have you learned this? From your detective novels?”

“Common sense. We were a good deal more careful about where we stepped than your men were, I dare say. By now I would wager much of the evidence is gone. Fortunately, I saw the scene before your herd of elephants stomped all over it. What you need to look for is a four-wheeled cab drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off fore leg.”

Lestrade smirked. “Oh, and what is this mythical cabby’s name?”

“I don’t know,” Holmes admitted. “But he must’ve had a nose bleed.”

“Nose bleed?”

“Either that or the murdered man injured him when they argued. He used the blood to write on the wall.”

At this, Lestrade’s mouth fell open. He stared at Holmes, frowning. “What did he write?”

“R-A-C-H-E-”

The inspector appeared to think about this. “No doubt the name of the woman,” he muttered.

Now Holmes frowned. “There wasn’t a woman there. What makes you say this?”

Lestrade smiled thinly. “Never you mind.”

We arrived at 221B. Lestrade escorted us inside and handed us over to Mrs Hudson. She wept and kissed us both, exclaiming how awful it must have been. The other Irregulars looked on enviously, not because of all the attentions we were receiving, but because we'd spent the night in gaol, an accomplishment none of them had achieved.

“Take care that they stay here,” Lestrade told her. “Until we solve this case, consider them under house arrest.”

“Why?” Holmes cried with indignation. “What have we done?”

“As I said, you’ve tampered with a crime scene, and if I don’t keep you under lock and key, you will undoubtedly get under my feet and prevent me from doing my job.”

“Why did you say there was a woman there? You hadn’t seen the writing on the wall. At least tell us what made you think a woman was there.”

Lestrade said nothing, but smiled.

Homes shifted impatiently. “Don’t be greedy, Lestrade! I told you about the writing— you wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t said. You found something when the body was moved. A picture? A letter?”

The inspector rolled his eyes a bit. “Very well, but you’ll stay here until I say you can go out. If you don’t, I’ll have you both nicked and thrown in a cell again.”

“We promise,” Holmes said. “Tell us what you found.”

“There were letters in his pocket. I can’t reveal what they said, but under his body we found a ring. A woman’s wedding ring. I’m guessing her name was Rachel. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting back to work.” Giving Mrs Hudson a small bow, he left.

We retired to the basement flat to think.

The irregulars demanded to hear everything. Holmes was reading the German dictionary, so I began to tell them about the house and the dead man inside.

When I got to the part about Holmes sniffing his mouth and deciding he’d been poisoned, their eyes grew wide.

“You could tell? Just from the smell?” Anderson asked.

I nodded. “It smelt vile.” I hadn’t actually sniffed the man’s mouth, but I was sure that a poison that could kill so horribly must have a horrible smell. “An’ you should’ve seen the look on his face. He looked like he’d just seen the devil hisself.”

“What was his face like?” asked Sal.

I screwed my face up into a ghastly grimace. They all gasped.

“It was horrible,” I assured them.

“Why’d the cabby kill ‘im?” Dicky asked.

Holmes snapped the dictionary shut and looked up. “Revenge.”

“Revenge for what?” Sal asked.

“Well,” I said. “Turns out there was that wedding ring. Might be that the dead bloke stole the murderer’s girl.”

Holmes looked at me. “That may be possible,” he said. “I hope Lestrade has the sense to send a telegram to Cleveland inquiring about Drebber.”

“He was American,” I continued, my imagination carrying me far into the American West. “He might’ve gained a fortune in the Gold Rush, but lost his girl. Or—” The best idea had just occurred to me. Even if Lestrade never told us any more about the crime, I felt ready to create a thrilling backstory. “He might’ve been a Mormon.” I said this last word in a hushed voice.

The Irregulars looked puzzled.

“A moron?” asked Wiggins.

“Not a moron,” I said. “A _Mormon. _It’s a kind of religion. They all have more than one wife. A rich one might have about ten or fifteen wives, maybe eighty children.”

“You’re making that up,” said Sal.

“Am not,” I asserted. “I read about it in an American newspaper. Holmes read it too. They live out west, in the desert, in… Yu… Yu…”

“Utah,” said Holmes.

I nodded. “Utah. An’ they build pyramids and things. They all have dozens of wives, like a harem, an’ none of them will marry a non-Mormon.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a rule,” I said. “That’s just how they are.”

“But if they all have dozens of wives,” Sal pointed out, “there must be a lot more women than men.”

Prof nodded. “Or maybe they have to send the men without wives out to find more women.”

Unwilling to let my story get away from me, I made several leaps of logic. “An’ they force the women to become Mormons so’s they can make ‘em part of their harems,” I said triumphantly. “That’s why the cabby was looking for revenge. The dead bloke stole his wife, took her to Utah, and turned her Mormon. An’ then she died.”

“What from?” Prof wanted to know.

I paused to think of a sufficiently romantic cause of death. “A broken heart.”

After we’d eaten dinner, while Holmes stretched out on our bed to read _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_, I took up a pencil and an old composition notebook that Mrs Hudson had given me and, propping myself on my elbows, considered how I might write the story I’d thought of.

Holmes glanced up and saw me chewing the end of my pencil.

“Mormons,” he said, chuckling.

“You don’t think it’s a good story?”

He smiled. “You have a romantic imagination, Doc.”

“Why’d you say _revenge_, then?”

“Because that’s what he wrote on the wall. _Rache_ is German for _revenge.”_

“Then it might be romantic.” I felt sure that there had to be romance in the story. Blood on the wall, the dead grimace on the man’s face, the wedding ring. All of these meant romance. “It might have happened the way I described. Don’t you think it’s possible?”

“Might be,” he said.

I scratched a few words into my notebook. _A Study in Scarlet._ “Where’s Utah?” I asked. “Is it near New York? Or Cleveland?” These were the only two American cities I knew of, and I’d only recently learned of Cleveland, where the story might begin.

“Further west,” Holmes said. “It’s mostly desert.”

“What’s a desert like?”

“Arid. No rain.”

“You ever see one?”

“No. I’m sure it’s repulsive.”

“Why do the Mormons live there?”

He shrugged. “You ever read the Bible, Watson? A lot of it happens in a desert.”

I began to write: _In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert…_

When we’d rested, we rose and began to prepare for our patrol. Mrs Hudson met us at the door. “House arrest,” she said. “All of you. Besides, it’s raining, and I won’t have any of you catching your death.”

“There’s nothing to do,” complained Sal. “Anybody want to play cards?”

“No fun if you can’t wager,” said Dicky. “I’ve got no pennies.”

“Let’s play Hazard,” Wiggins suggested.

“Mrs Hudson took away our dice,” Prof reminded him. “She said it’s a sin. Unless you’re Catholic.”

“I’m Catholic,” said Wiggins.

“I have a better idea,” said Holmes.

To cope with our boredom, Holmes suggested that we should act out my story. Wiggins would be the late Mr Drebber, he decided, and I would be the murderer, since I’d thought of the story. Sal refused to be the woman, who I’d decided to call Lucy, so Holmes said she could be Constable Rance, who discovered the body. Anderson and Prof drew straws to see who would be Lucy. Prof, the loser, went to borrow a costume from Mrs Hudson, and returned with a shawl and an old bonnet we’d never seen her wear. Anderson, relieved that he didn’t have to be the tragic heroine, was assigned the role of the the unseen Stangerson. Holmes would be the detective who solved the mystery.

We began by pushing the beds to the sides of the room, leaving one end clear to use as a stage for the drama. Prof and Wiggins ran upstairs to borrow chairs from Mrs Hudson to use as props. I directed the action, which began with Lucy crossing the Great Plains in a covered wagon made of chairs.

“Westward, ho!” Stamford/Lucy said. “I bid thee farewell, O New York!”

I had another inspiration. Her parents would die on the journey, and she would be raised by the only other survivor of the journey, a man named…

“John Ferrier,” Holmes suggested. He agreed to act the part.

“You’re rescued by the Mormons,” I told the survivors, pointing at Wiggins and Anderson.

“We’re on our way to Utah,” Wiggins/Drebber told Stamford/Lucy. “Where are you going?”

Stamford stepped out of character to remind us that plays always used lots of _thees_ and _thous_ and if we wanted this to be an authentic drama, we should sound more poetic. “Like Shakespeare,” he said.

“I don’t know how to talk like Shakespeare,” Dicky objected.

“You say, _where goest thou?_ Things like that,” Mike told him. “_Art thou desirous of accompanying us?_”

Wiggins snorted and said, “This ain’t Shakespeare.”

I wasn’t sure how Americans talked, but didn’t like the idea of my play dissolving into a comedy. “Americans are not so posh,” I said. “I don’t think we need any _thees _and_ thous._”

Stamford looked grumpy.

“Well, maybe Lucy’s posh,” I conceded. “If you want to sound like Shakespeare, your character can do that.”

The wagon train set out for Utah. Sal asked where the red Indians were. This gave me another idea, and everyone who was not on the wagon train got to be a red Indian and attack it. Holmes/Ferrier fought them off, and everybody else died, including Lucy’s parents. Ferrier and Lucy continued together, on foot.

Once they all arrived in Utah, the Mormons began to compete for Lucy. I snuck in and beat their time, winning Lucy for myself. The others wanted us to kiss, but we refused.

“I’m not so free with my affections,” Mike/Lucy said. (Dicky thought this was hilarious, and repeated it for days afterwards.)

Since my character wasn’t a Mormon, and John Ferrier and Lucy had converted to that religion, Wiggins and Anderson decided they would force Lucy to marry one of them. Sal, foreseeing a fight, asked if she could be a Mormon, just temporarily. At this point we were able to improvise a rather good fight scene, with the Mormons (Anderson and Wiggins) killing Holmes/Ferrier and kidnapping Stamford/Lucy, leaving me to swear revenge against them. At this point, Mrs Hudson came downstairs to see what all the crashing was about and to make sure we weren’t breaking any chairs. We explained the plot to her, and she sat down to watch the second act.

Now my character was attempting to track down the Mormons in Cleveland, but they had fled to Britain. I followed them, became a cabby and lured Wiggins to the empty house, where I had to convince him to take the poison pill.

“Choose and eat,” I said, brandishing the humbugs Mrs Hudson had provided for the pills. “There is death in one and life in the other. I shall take what you leave. We will let the high God judge between us.” Holmes had procured a butter knife for me to threaten him with in case he refused to take his medicine.

“Would you murder me?” Wiggins/Drebber said, trying to look aghast.

“Choose, you mad dog!” I cried. “It is no murder. You killed my poor darling, made her part of your shameless harem.”

Everyone watched intently as Wiggins and I put the confections in our mouths.

“You’re supposed to die in agony,” I whispered when he did not succumb.

“Maybe the poison was in yours,” he said.

“It’s not. I’m supposed to live.”

He nodded and made a dying face.

“That doesn’t look like agony,” said Sal.

He began to writhe and groan, and finally fell to the floor, gave a few kicks, and lay still.

After we were sure he was dead, Sal came in as a constable and found his body, I returned to the scene, pretending to be drunk, which was fun, but didn’t require much talent, and Sal chased me off. 

She then began blowing a whistle, which summoned Holmes, playing himself as a detective. He came on the scene, brandishing the magnifying lens he’d received from Lestrade at Christmas, and explained all of his deductions based on footprints and wheel tracks, which all of us had to admit sounded very scientific. He scolded Sal for not arresting me and letting me escape. She argued with him a bit, but after a while, with some encouragement from the director and the audience, she conceded that he had a point.

“What about me?” Anderson/Stangerson said. “When do you figure out that I’m with the Mormons?”

“Doc has already killed you,” Holmes said. “You’ve been stabbed, I think. Just lie down and pretend you’re dead.”

Before Anderson could protest that he hadn’t had a proper death scene, and he’d really rather have a Humbug than get stabbed, Lestrade arrived. We all came up to the kitchen, eager to hear his news. Mrs Hudson made coffee and cut him a large slice of pie. We stood impatiently, watching him eat.

“I’ve got a job for you,” he told Holmes as he swallowed a bite of the pie. “I need you to find me a cabby named Jefferson Hope.”

Holmes grinned. “Easy. I already know that it’s a four-wheeler and the horse has one new shoe.”

“When you find him, send him here,” Lestrade told us. Mrs Hudson cut him another slice and refilled his cup. “Tell him a cab is needed at 221B Baker Street.”

Now that we’d been deputised, we headed outside. Holmes divided us up into pairs and told us what to look for.

Since we already knew some of the cabbies who frequented our area, we asked them about the cab and the horse. One of them said he’d seen him, describing the cab and the horse as Holmes had said. “He’s got an accent,” he said, referring to the driver. “Might be American.”

At that moment Sal and Dicky came running. “He’s over on Northumberland. We asked him to come to Baker Street.”

When Jefferson Hope arrived, Lestrade was ready. Mrs Hudson let him in, saying that she needed help with her cases, chattering on about how she was going to visit her sister and had to take a train to Leeds, and she was afraid she’d miss it if he couldn’t help her.

“No trouble, ma’am,” he said. “Where are the bags?”

Lestrade was pretending to have trouble latching one of the cases. When Hope bent down to help him, he clapped the darbies on his wrists.

At once the man began to shout and thrash about, cursing terribly.

Lestrade held him tight. “Jefferson Hope, I arrest you for the murders of Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson.”

Jefferson Hope was red-faced and panting like a mad dog. He snarled at Lestrade. “Yes, I killed them. I freely admit it. But when you hear what I have to say, you will know that I am just another agent of justice, like you.”

As I watched, I considered how I might write the scene. Maybe he could try to jump out the window and escape, or pull a knife on us, I thought, or—

“Revenge!” cried Holmes. “I knew it! Tell us about the ring—”

He had scarcely uttered these words when Hope suddenly clutched at his chest. His face contorted horribly. No longer gasping, he clawed at his throat as if he could not breathe, then fell to the floor, convulsed, and went still. It was even more impressive than Wiggins’ death throes.

We gaped, astonished. Lestrade lay a finger on his neck, then put his ear to the man’s mouth. “He’s dead.”

“No! _No_— he has to tell us what happened, why he did it!” Holmes looked stricken. “What will you put in the police report?”

Lestrade shrugged. “He confessed. The details don’t matter. You can’t try a dead man.”

“The details always matter!” Holmes griped.

The detective patted his shoulder. “Good work.” He nodded at us. “All of you. Thank you for your help.”

Holmes would not let go. “But what had Drebber done that Hope wanted to kill him? What about the ring? You sent the telegram— you must know something!”

Lestrade looked at our circle of faces, all of us dying to hear a tale of Mormons and murder. Smirking a bit, he said, “No bedtime stories, boys.” He tipped his hat to Sal. “And lady.”

We sat in our basement flat, all of us disappointed at how the case had ended.

“Our first murder,” Holmes grumbled. “And we don’t even know what really happened.”

“There could have been Mormons,” Sal offered.

Prof nodded. “I liked the part where you all fought over me.”

“I didn’t get to die, not properly,” Dicky complained. “At least Wiggins got a death scene. All I got was _lie down and pretend you’re dead._ It’s not fair.”

“But we haven’t proved anything!” Holmes jumped up and started pacing. “How am I to know if I was right about any of it? We don’t know who the woman was. We don’t know how Hope knew Drebber and Stangerson, or what they were doing here. The poison— how did he get Drebber to take it? And Stangerson—”

I filled his pipe and handed it to him. He took it and slumped down on the bed.

“It all makes sense, the way Doc told it,” Wiggins said. “And it all fits. The Mormons kidnapped the girl, so she died from a broken heart, and Hope wanted revenge. He tracked them all the way from Utah to London.”

“No,” Holmes groaned. “We don’t _know_ they were from Utah, or if they were Mormons, or any of it. It’s all speculation.” But he lit his pipe and puffed for a bit.

“Life is often stranger than fiction,” said Prof, putting down _Oliver Twist_. “But usually stories are more interesting than real life because they leave out the boring parts. Myself, I prefer books.” He reopened his book and inserted his nose, his spectacles once again having been broken.

Holmes looked disgruntled for a moment, then propped himself against the wall and opened _Monsieur Lecoq_. “Allons, Watson. Lisons aussi.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the ACD story "A Study in Scarlet," which is the first Sherlock Holmes story he wrote.  
  
The little story that Watson invents here is based entirely on Part II of that story, "The Country of the Saints," which really does take place in Utah and involves murderous Mormons.  
  
I think that the Utah parts of that story are not read so much these days, and I'm sure Mormons are insulted by his portrayal of them as murderers, but at the time they were not so well received in communities because of their practice of polygamy.  
  
I have always thought that this ACD story sounds as if it was written by a thirteen-year-old boy with a florid vocabulary. The first sentence that Watson pencils in his notebook is taken literally from Chapter 1 of Part II, "On the Great Alkali PLain." Read it, and see if you agree.


	5. Forty Thieves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watson is kidnapped by a neighboring gang.

Mrs Hudson not only kept us all fed, but scrounged clothing for us as well. To keep a gang of growing children covered and warm was time-consuming, but she hunted through charity boxes and the rag-picker’s offerings, and the neighbours contributed their worn clothing as well. This was how an occasional fine item would turn up. Holmes’ red braces were one such find, and his odd hat was another. The lot of us appreciated the jumpers and coats, scarves and hats she mended for us when the weather began to turn cooler.

I’d been at Baker Street over two years when she called me into the sitting room one day to try a coat on me. “It looks a bit small for the others, but you haven’t had your growth spurt yet, so I thought it would fit you best.”

It was a tweed jacket, much finer than anything I’d ever worn. Not showy, but I imagined it to be something a boy my age would have worn to school. Definitely not working-class.

I slipped it on and looked down at myself. On my toes, I peeped into the mirror over the sideboard.

Mrs Hudson smiled. “You look quite the gentleman, Mr Watson.”

I stared at myself. “It’s a bit fine for everyday use.”

“Nonsense. Things are made to be used. Some other boy didn’t get much use out of this, but there’s no reason for it to hang in a wardrobe, getting chewed on by moths.” She showed me where she’d mended a few small holes. “There’s a hole in the pocket as well, but for that I’ll need grey thread. Be a good boy and run down to Alder’s and get me some more thread. Grey, brown, and black. And a pack of Redditch sharps, number nine.” She placed coins in my hand.

“May I wear my new coat?” I asked.

“Of course. I’ll do the pocket when you return.”

“Where’s Holmes?” Normally we went out in pairs, just as we did on patrol.

“I sent him to the butcher for a hen and to pick up some things for dinner. You can take Michael with you, or Philip. Off you go.”

Stamford was nowhere to be found, nor Anderson. It wasn’t far to Alders, and two people running such a small errand seemed a waste of manpower. It was noon, broad daylight, and there was usually a copper within sight.

Coins jingling in my new coat pocket, I trotted down the street. Alder’s was three streets over, and though I never felt nervous when Holmes was at my side, I began to look around cautiously now, afraid that I looked ripe for a picking.

My fears were soon realised. As I turned onto Marylebone Road, I saw several bigger boys take note. I might have tried to brave it out, but instead I picked up the pace. Holmes would have slowed to a swagger, daring them to come near, but he was considerably taller, and knew how to bluff anyone. I ran like a frightened rabbit, hoping to reach Alder’s before they gave chase.

They were bigger and faster, and I found myself in an alley, shoved up against the wall. A foolish thought occurred to me, that my coat would be dirty, and what a shame it was that I’d only had it for less than an hour. Most likely they would take it from me, along with the coins in my pocket.

There were three of them, not boys per se. They were like many young men of the neighbourhood who could not keep a job and resorted to petty crime. The tallest of the three was dark and fairly ugly, with a nose that had survived a few fights, though with considerable damage. It was flattened and bent to one side. For some reason I found this fascinating, imagining the bones and cartilage underneath that had been broken and healed badly. The other two were less horrible, and younger, but wore smug smiles. One had red hair, the other was sandy blond.

They took my coat, as I predicted, and scoffed at my few coins.

“What’s your name, Pretty?” the large one said.

I might have made up a name, but with a large hand suspending me above the ground, I couldn’t think of any.

“John Watson,” I squeaked.

“Watson?” said the sandy one. He stepped towards me, peering into my face. “Who’s your dad?”

“He’s dead.”

“I didn’t ask you if he was dead, I asked you who he was.”

The large one dropped me, knocking the wind out of me. Sandy-hair hauled me to my feet. He was larger than me, though still a relatively small man. He might have been a seaman, to judge by his weathered face, or a farm worker. Holmes would know. He had made a study of professions and how they left their marks on a person.

“Henry Watson,” I said. “Long dead. Killed breaking into a house.”

He laughed. “Hexham?”

I nodded.

“Then you must be my little runt of a brother,” he said. “I’m Harry Watson.”

“You ran away,” I said. “Where did you go?”

“Joined the navy. When that didn’t work out, I went into the family business.” He grinned. “If you take my meaning.”

“Look, Harry,” said the redhead. “This ain’t the place for a family reunion. Take the little bugger with us and you can have a tea party in the garden for all we care.”

Ugly Nose guffawed. “A garden party!”

Harry took my arm and propelled me down the street. We followed Marylebone until it turned into Euston. I was somewhat familiar with the area, having walked here with Holmes a few times, but it was ruled by unfriendly gangs and we’d all been warned not to walk alone here. Once we passed Hampstead Street, I was in unfamiliar territory. We continued walking until we reached Seymour Street, then turned north.

They brought me to their crib, a basement flat in an old building. I was presented to a man they addressed as Grim, which was meant to be short for Grim Reaper, I assumed, though it might have been a shortened form of Grimley or Grimsby or some other name. He was slight man, with dark hair and intelligent eyes.

Grim sat and assessed me. Those eyes appeared to take in a lot. “You’re one of Holmes’ boys.”

I saw no point in denying it. I nodded.

He looked up at Harry. “He’ll be useful. Keep an eye on him.”

That night I lay on a thin mattress with two other boys. Some of the bigger boys had an idea that it might be fun to bugger me, but Harry said he’d fight anyone who touched me. He was clearly a favourite of Grim, and even though he wasn’t the biggest, he was able to command the respect of the others. The boys I lay with took the two sides, forcing me to sleep between them with elbows and knees knocking into me. I thought of my nice bed at Mrs Hudson’s house and began to cry, silently. If the other boys knew, they didn’t say anything.

I was never allowed out of their sight, even when I relieved myself at the privy. If Harry couldn’t watch me, Red or Sid (Ugly Nose) kept me in their sight. They all carried knives, and as I never got more than an arm’s length from any of them, running was not an option.

The gang called themselves Quarante Voleurs. From reading _Monsieur Lecoq_, I knew that this was French for _forty_ _thieves. _Grim had the quiet air of a university student, not the self-taught cockiness that Holmes displayed. He spoke calmly, like a man who doesn’t need to shout to be obeyed. His gangsters were a mixed lot. From what I could tell, there were more than a dozen of them in all, maybe twenty, only a few of them younger than me. Not all of them slept on premises, but they all reported before noon, hanging around like labourers waiting to be hired for a job. Their business was breaking into houses. Grim had a map of surrounding neighbourhoods and kept meticulous notes on each house’s inhabitants. They did not waste their time on poor neighbourhoods.

Grim watched me sometimes, but did not speak to me until the third day. By then I was worried that I’d never get away, that Holmes would figure I’d run off and joined another gang. He might think I’d betrayed the Irregulars if he saw me walking with Harry or any of the Voleurs. And the gang could hardly let me go, now that I had sat in their den for so many days.

“I have a job for you,” Grim said to me. “You’re coming with Harry and me tonight.”

“What do I have to do?”

His dark eyes narrowed in appraisal. “Keep your teeth together until I ask you something.”

The job was in Marylebone, on Devonshire, the shop of a pawnbroker who dealt mainly in jewellery. I hoped I was to be the lookout, which would give me a chance to make a run for it, but Grim was too smart to consider that. He’d brought Red along for that job. My role was to climb up the side of the building and enter through the second floor window. I would then descend silently and let them in through the back door.

From Grim’s look, I knew this was a test. I was either to be accepted as a member of his gang of thieves, or sacrificed as a stooge or a decoy. If anyone was to be arrested, it would be John Watson.

Harry smiled at me encouragingly and patted my shoulder. He no doubt thought that breaking into houses was in our blood, a legacy from our father. “Up you go,” he whispered.

“We can’t pick the lock?” I asked.

Grim shook his head. “The ground floor doors all have night latches on the inside.”

Whatever I may have inherited from my ancestors, I am a good climber. Holmes once suggested that I was part lemur, a small tree-dwelling animal with large eyes and a striped tail. Shoeless now, I made my way up the building, finding invisible footholds in the bricks, putting no weight on the drain pipe I used to balance myself. The window, I saw, was already open, and while it made it easier to get inside, this did not seem like a good thing.

Once I was on the sill, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness, I knew I had been right; it was the shop owner’s bedroom. I was to be the pigeon. If the others saw lights come on or heard shouts, they would be gone, not giving a moment’s thought to my fate.

If, on the other hand, I began backing down the wall, they would be waiting for me with their knives.

I swung myself over the sill and let my bare feet down onto the floor. I crouched, listening. The owner’s breathing was regular and even, so I began to creep across the floor. The door gave no problem. I turned the knob and gently pushed it open, slipped out, and then closed it, making sure the latch had caught. In the shadows I halted for a few minutes, waiting to see if the owner had heard the latch click. When I heard him snore, I decided I was safe and began to tiptoe down the stairs.

The back door was where they were waiting. The display room was locked, so I made my way to the back of the store, through a small office and into a store room. As I faced the night latch, my training from Holmes was once more useful. His fascination with keys and locking mechanisms had been the topic of many evening conversations. I knew how to throw the bolt and did so at once.

Red gave a wave to us and moved around the building to keep watch on the street. Grim headed straight into the office. Harry, holding a dark lantern, followed him; I stayed by the door. Holmes had talked a bit about safecracking in his evening discourses, so I knew the general principal. We hadn’t tried it ourselves, of course, but had wondered whether a stethoscope would be helpful. Grim knelt beside the safe and took off his gloves. He did not use any listening tool, but closed his eyes and put his hand on the lock. He seemed to be feeling the clicks of the mechanism with his fingers as he slowly turned the dial. Harry motioned that I should be silent. We stood back.

After a few minutes, Grim frowned and shook out his hand. He made a motion to Harry, who nodded and went into the front hallway. I saw him listen at the door to the stairs. He nodded to Grim.

The cracksman went back to work. The time seemed to drag and I tried not to fidget. I thought about where we were in relation to Baker Street, how long it would take me to run there.

A noise above us made us all freeze. The floor had creaked. Again, Grim motioned that Harry should go look.

I waited breathlessly, saw him open the stairs door. A flash of light and the bang of a gun made me jump. Harry fell, half of his head blown away. The owner stood over him, holding the gun.

I froze, staring at Harry. What I saw would never leave my mind. I had no idea that there was so much blood in the brain. A piece of his skull had been blown off and I wondered dizzily where it was and if I ought to try and retrieve it. I could see brain matter, pinkish grey, on the floor. In the anatomy books the Holmes and I read, the insides of a human looked rather orderly. This was not; it was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen.

The owner turned and aimed at us.

Grim did not flinch. Revolver already in his hand, he fired, hitting the owner in the neck. The man got off one more shot, which went wild, then collapsed on the floor, blood pouring from his wound.

Grim grabbed me and propelled me through the back door. He let out a whistle and Red came from around the corner. We ran. If I slowed, they lifted me and dragged me forward. By the time we reached Regent’s Park, I felt as if I had tumbled down a long hill covered in rocks.

“What about Harry?” I asked.

Grim barked a short laugh. “Dead.” He rose to his feet. “Come on.”

The shop owner did not survive. The bullet had gone through his jugular vein and he had bled out by the time we reached the park. The next day, the story was all in every newspaper, with the details of the foiled robbery and the dead robber. I knew the Irregulars would be all over it, too.

I did not cry for Harry; he’d run off before I was ten and had long been gone from my thoughts. He hadn’t even asked me about our mother or sister. I wondered what sort of life we’d have had if our father had been more respectable, if Harry would have stayed, if he would have been my hero and role model. I could not blame him for what he became, having come so near to that myself. But I would not miss him.

Grim eyed me with more curiosity. I had apparently passed his test, and he was thinking about how he might use me.

“Your boss,” he said. “What does Holmes expect to get out of his deal with the coppers?”

I shrugged. “He’s not my boss.”

He laughed. “I suppose he has a little Greek democracy running over on Baker Street.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but knew not to talk.

“He must drop it.” His voice was quiet, but I knew now that he was most dangerous when he spoke this way. “He really must.” He looked at me gravely. “He has crossed my patch too many times.”

“He protects his territory,” I said.

“Yes, his little army. He and all the other grubby little children of the night.”

Grim was the least fidgety person I have ever seen. He did not smoke, and where Holmes would have been stuffing his pipe or chewing on its mouthpiece during a conversation like this, Grim merely gazed at me with no expression. He never fretted or grew impatient. He had a manner of speaking, as I said, that testified to breeding, maybe even wealth.

“Why do you do this?” I asked.

“Because I can,” he replied. “Men of business are merely thieves with credentials. They have clerks and solicitors who see that they stay just on the right side of the line, within the law.” He smiled, a rare occurrence. “Do you know that I’ve been to Eton and Oxford? I might have done the same as my classmates, gone into law or government.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I despise that kind of self-righteous dishonesty. I suspect I have much in common with your Mr Holmes.”

“He’s not like you,” I said vehemently. “He doesn’t prey upon people— and he’s not a murderer.”

“Pity. He would have been good at it.” He rose and stretched himself. “You should get some sleep before the battle.”

“Battle?”

But he would say no more. One day, I thought, Holmes and I might see him in darbies. With that notion in my mind, I lay down on my mattress and drifted off to sleep.

“You must play your part well,” Grim said, handing me my coat. He had already strapped a couple of knives on, and now was putting a revolver in his pocket, the one he’d used to kill the shop owner.

“What exactly is my part?”

He looked at me with cool serenity, born of the absolute certainty that his gun would guarantee my obedience. “To say what I tell you to say. And do not take any ideas into that small brain of yours. You’re not smarter than me, and nowhere near as ruthless. I will not be the least bit distressed if I have to shoot you or your boss.”

There were sixteen of us. We walked towards the park, following Marylebone Street. Before we came as far as Baker Street, we made a turn into a side street where there were only warehouses, no residences or businesses. One gas lamp illuminated the dead end of the street, where I could see five people waiting. Holmes was in front, with Sal, Prof, Dicky, and Wiggins flanking him.

We stopped a hundred yards away. Grim handed the revolver to Red.

Feeling a bit brash and desperate, I scoffed. “Aren’t you going to hold a gun on me? How do you know I’ll do as you ask?”

“I don’t need a gun,” he said mildly. “You will do as I say. Tell him this: _Give it up, Holmes. Stop obstructing us._”

“And what incentive will I give him to do this?”

“Your life.” Grim gave me an empty smile. “You will live if he agrees not to hamper our activities.”

“You would kill me?”

“Of course. Or I could simply hand you over to the police for the murder of that shop owner.”

“Holmes won’t agree.”

“Pity for you, then. You’d best be persuasive, John Watson.”

We approached the Irregulars. I led and Grim walked behind me. When he saw me, Sherlock looked momentarily confused, then sad, and finally, angry.

“Speak,” Grim hissed in my ear. “Say it.”

“Give it up, Holmes,” I said in an unconvincing voice. “Stop obstructing us.”

“Why?” he asked. His eyes went from my face to Grim’s, and then flitted over the others, and back to mine.

Grim fed me my lines. “You evidently don’t know me, Holmes.” My lips quivered. Anguished, I hoped that he did know me, that he understood my position.

“On the contrary, I think that I do. I know you, John Watson.” His voice was soft, almost fond.

“Then you understand how— how futile this all is.” My throat closed, and it was all I could do not to cry. I bit my lip to stop it from trembling.

“He’s a coward, John,” Holmes said. “That is why he’s using you as his mouthpiece.”

_“Tell him,”_ Grim hissed. “Tell him you’re with us now.”

“I’m… I’m…” I could not finish the sentence, even knowing that Red had the revolver trained on me. I felt like a puppet. My own helplessness enraged me. “He is willing to fight with you, man to man,” I said suddenly, growing bolder. “If you are willing. No guns, no knives. Fisticuffs. Just the two of you.”

It was a long shot, but I saw no other chance. I had wrestled with Holmes often enough to know that he was a good fighter. I did not know Grim well, but suspected that he was not used to doing his own fighting. He might be vain enough, though, not to willingly back down from a challenge.

“I accept,” Holmes said.

I felt a sudden searing pain in my arm, and knew that Grim had used one of his knives on me. “There’s more where that came from,” he hissed. “Later, though. After I’ve killed your friends.”

Holmes approached with his hands up, Wiggins following. “You may have one of your minions search me for weapons, and I will do the same.”

Grim pushed me towards Sid, who clamped onto my shoulder like a vice. Red handed him the revolver. I could feel blood running down my arm, soaking into my coat. Rather than worrying about dying, though, I remember thinking, _the nicest coat I’ve ever owned is now ruined_. It was a fleeting thought, and at once my worries turned to what Grim might do to Holmes. He would not fight fair, I knew, and I hoped that Holmes would not be a man of honour either.

Once both combatants had removed their shirts and been searched, they began to circle one another. Holmes was a bit taller, but Grim, though not a big man, was older and more developed. Both would be strategic about it, assessing one another as they prepared their attack. For a while it seemed that neither wanted to strike first, then Holmes suddenly threw a punch. As Grim blocked and prepared to hit back, Holmes kicked his legs out from under him.

It was then that I noticed that the Irregulars seemed to have grown. At least twenty more boys had joined Holmes’ side of the road. More were filtering in out of the darkness. Some carried sticks, and I could see the flash of knives in a few hands.

Grim was more agile than he looked, and quickly rolled and rose to his feet. His face, normally impassive, now showed rage. He had been humiliated. Holmes looked confident. I remembered his instructions to me: _Anger might seem like a good fuel for a fight, but it takes away your control._ Grim was losing his steely control, and that would make him careless.

I shifted a bit. Sid had been holding me in a death grip when the fight began, but now he was too absorbed to notice that he had only one hand on me. I looked at the other gang members. A few held knives, but none seemed to have noticed that they were outnumbered. I felt a bit dizzy, but prepared to make a move when the moment was right.

I had never seen Holmes fight like this. He’d taught me to defend myself, and in doing so had sparred with Wiggins so I could see a fight from the outside. The two of us had sparred as well, which taught me more. He had even taught me some tricks that weren’t considered fair play, for when I might find myself in a tough spot. _You’re small_, he’d told me, _so you’ll have to be strategic in a fight. Smaller size is no weakness, if you know how to use it to your advantage. _There were really two kinds of fighting, he said, the kind one did to earn respect, and the kind one did to avoid being killed. I had never fought for my life, but this was clearlygoing to be that kind of fight.

Holmes’ study of anatomy and attention to body mechanics served him well. He was landing both punches and kicks, as well as hand chops. I knew he was stronger than he looked, but he surprised even me. Grabbing Grim by the trousers, he threw him against a wall. All of this only made Grim more furious.

It was when he got to his feet after Holmes had knocked him down yet again that one of his boys tossed him a knife. At once our side began to mutter loudly and move forward. The other side, though fewer in number, pulled out knives and started towards them. It was about to become a melee.

At this moment, two things happened. First, Sid remembered he was holding a gun and pointed it at Holmes, who was grappling with Grim. Second, I could hear police whistles and knew that someone had alerted the cops.

Sid was trying to aim at Holmes without hitting Grim, and it didn’t look good for either of the combatants. That’s when I did something fairly stupid.

I was considerably shorter than Sid, who was still standing near me. I went for his crotch, barrelling into it and sending him sprawling. The gun went off.

There was a moment of complete silence, when everybody stopped what they were doing and looked around to see what had happened. I turned towards Sherlock and Grim, who had let go of each other and were still standing, both panting and looking a bit panicked.

Nobody had been hit. I dove for the gun and, with shaking hands, pointed it at Grim. Since I had never fired a gun before, let alone held one, it was a good thing that Holmes took it from me.

Police filled the street then. Holmes and I backed away.

The melee resumed. In the chaos, we managed to find our mates and moved away from the fight. Grim and his gang dispersed, and many of our supporters began to run as well.

Lestrade strode towards us, looking more than a little irritated. We had clearly been involved, but arresting us was the last thing he wanted to do.

Holmes had grabbed my hand at some point, and wasn’t letting go.

“What have you boys been up to here?” He nodded at Sal. “And girl.”

“The Voleurs kidnapped Watson,” Holmes told Lestrade. “We were rescuing him.”

Sergeant Lestrade frowned down at us. “The Voleurs are not schoolboys, and John Clay is not a man to play with, son. Murderer, thief, smasher, forger. And apparently a kidnapper as well.”

“I know where their bolthole is,” I said. “He calls himself Grim. I can take you there.”

He shook his head. “He’s not going back there. Too smart. It’ll be empty by the time we break down the door.” He sighed. “We’d best get you all back to Baker Street.”

Noticing the blood on my hand, Holmes let out a cry. “Watson! You’re hurt!”

I tried to look tough, or at least unconcerned, but my hands were shaking and my eyesight dimming. “It’s nothing, Holmes. It’s a mere scratch,” I said as everything went dark.

Holmes caught me before I hit the street. When I opened my eyes, he was cutting my jacket with his pocket-knife. “Thank God!” he said. “Quite superficial.” He frowned. “If he had killed you, Watson, he would not have gotten away alive. I would have taken that gun and shot him dead.”

“And his gang would have retaliated against you.” Lestrade was holding Grim’s revolver. “This has to end somewhere, and it’s right here, by God, if I have any power to stop it. Any one of you might have been killed tonight, and I don’t know how I would have explained that to Mrs Hudson. I hope she will be severe on all of you.” He frowned at me. “And you, young Watson, ought not to have been walking by yourself. Baker Street is safe enough, but once you head East, you’re getting into Voleur territory. It was foolish of you to walk alone.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I was running an errand for Mrs Hudson. She wanted to fix my coat pocket.” I looked sadly at my new coat, which even before Holmes cut it with his knife, was soaked with blood and had a bullet hole in the arm.

Lestrade shook his head. “I know she wouldn’t be foolish enough to send a small fellow like you out alone.”

I didn’t like being called a _small fellow_, but knew that everything that happened was my fault, so I just growled a bit and tried to look tough.

Lestrade glared at us disapprovingly. “Mrs Hudson’s been worried sick about you. If she knew what you all have been up to— well, let’s get you home.”

Mrs Hudson would not stop hugging me, or scolding me. She made me remove my shirt and cleaned the wound with carbolic acid.

The Irregulars watched, fascinated to see the wound.

“It won’t need stitches,” said Holmes. “Not deep enough for that.”

Prof nodded. “It’ll scar, though.”

The acid burned, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out as Mrs Hudson covered it with a dressing.

Anderson scoffed. “He’s always getting hurt.”

“Good thing he’s going to be a doctor, then.” Holmes smiled at me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for forgetting my source notes in the last chapter-- now posted.
> 
> This chapter borrows from the following stories:  
\- The Red-Headed League: John Clay is the villain there, as in this story, though here he goes by another alias of my own invention.  
\- The Three Garridebs: Holmes' reaction to Watson being wounded is taken from this story. 
> 
> Everything else is my own invention.


	6. Swear by the Stars

We all agreed that women required protection, and sometimes rescuing. We swore on our mother’s graves, even those of us who could barely remember our mothers. And we restrained our profane tongues in the presence of any female. Women were to be respected.

But aside from giving men a reason to have sword fights, women/girls/females were mostly uninteresting. Not one of us could think of romance without gagging.

Mrs Hudson was obviously in a category of her own, having rescued so many lost boys. Holmes hinted that she used to be married to a pirate, and that she had used all of Mr Hudson’s ill-gotten booty to buy 221B Baker Street.

Sal was one of us, so she didn’t inspire gagging. Nobody even thought of romancing her. When we played pirates, she refused to be rescued. She liked sword fighting, and was better at it than Dicky.

But even Sal could not pretend to be a boy forever. Some months earlier, Mrs Hudson had decided that Sal would no longer would share quarters with the rest of us. Our landlady had two bedrooms, one of which had served as her sewing headquarters; now she put a bed in this room and made it Sal’s. “A young lady ought to have some privacy,” she stated. They began to have secret conversations which stopped the moment any boy set foot upstairs.

This was all a mystery to me, and Anderson as well, who considered Sal his mate, not an actual woman. Wiggins pointed out there were certain things about Sal that no longer allowed her to pass as a boy. He did not say exactly what these things were, but I looked; he was correct.

As we sat outside pitching pennies one day, Wiggins said, “You know, that girl who works for Angelo… she’s pretty.” The very girl was walking down the street as we spoke, heading for the green grocer, probably to buy more onions.

We all stopped playing and stared. Wiggins was staring at the girl with starry-eyed rapture, and the rest of us were staring at him in puzzlement.

Wiggins was seventeen, so this shouldn’t have surprised us. Holmes however, of the same age, grimaced. “I really cannot congratulate you, old man.”

Staring at the object of his admiration, Wiggins looked besotted. “She is… pretty. I think so, anyway.”

“The trouble is that you’re not thinking,” said Holmes. “At least you’re thinking with the little head, not the big head.”

I snorted. Anderson cackled and pretended to drop dead.

Sal rolled her eyes and spoke, with contempt in her voice. “She’s skinny.”

“So are you,” said Anderson. “You’ve got no arse at all.”

“I’m not a woman,” that female replied. “I’m a girl.”

I knew that boys all grow up to be men, who fancy women, who were once skinny girls, but I had never actually thought about a girl that way. I stared after the girl, whose name was Sofia, and tried to decide what Wiggins was seeing in her. She had dark hair which was braided. I didn’t think she looked skinny. Her posterior was rather plump and round.

“Don’t stare, Watson,” said Holmes, covering my eyes with his hand. “You’re thinking too hard. Go with your gut instincts.”

My gut instincts were telling me just one thing, that I loved Sherlock Holmes. This was a bit unexpected, since I understood that men married women, not other men. I also knew that a man who loved another man was not normal, and might be thrown in gaol for doing something about it.

I realised that I did not care for women, even at that age, and that this was not an inclination that I would grow out of. I wasn’t worried about any legal implications of my feelings, since I was the only one who was aware that I thought about it. You can’t arrest somebody for thinking something, I knew. Nevertheless, a sudden fear gripped me. What if Holmes started feeling like Wiggins? What if he began to fancy women instead of wanting to be a pirate, teaching me how to wrestle, snuggling against me at night? If Wiggins had changed overnight from one of us into a sentimental fool who looked at females with gooey eyes, what was to stop Holmes from doing the same?

I watched him. Whenever he was talking to a woman, I tracked his eyes, seeing if they strayed to unmentionable parts. I studied his expression, to see if it became soft and unfocused, as Wiggins’ face did.

Women did flirt with Holmes, I noted. Old women thought he was sweet, and patted his cheek, saying _what a nice young man_ he was. Young women, who had formerly regarded him with disdain, seemed to let their eyes linger a bit longer over him. And why wouldn’t they? He was a beautiful youth, unlike Wiggins, who was skinny and had an Adam’s apple that poked out and a voice that broke at the oddest moments. Sherlock Holmes was suave in manners and striking in appearance, with a voice like treacle and a way of looking at you that made you feel as if you would sign your life away simply for the privilege of trailing along after him.

I looked at him constantly. I didn’t know anything about flirting. I simply pined, and trailed after him.

Wiggins pined over Sofia for a month. After she started walking out with the green grocer’s boy, he became infatuated with another girl, a kitchen maid named Myrtle who lived in a house further down Baker Street. She walked daily by our house, slowing as she passed us to see if anyone would catch her eye. Prof started sweating and went inside. Anderson, who had begun to pine after Sal, wavered. Holmes’ eyes stayed focused on his book.

Perhaps reflecting on his failure with Sofia, Wiggins gathered his courage and offered to carry what she was holding, which was a small bag of parsley. She smiled and said _yes_. They continued down the street.

“Idiot,” Holmes muttered. He grinned at me. “Who wants to play legionnaires and barbarians?”

The romance of Wiggins and Myrtle lasted just a week. He did not swear off women, however, and a few days after his disastrous break-up, gave us news of an impending event.

“Mrs Turner’s getting a girl. I heard her talking to Mrs Hudson.”

“Have you seen her?” Prof asked. “Is she pretty?”

“Haven’t seen her yet. She’s a niece, coming from Wales this Friday.”

Prof, Wiggins, and Anderson spent the rest of the week speculating about the girl. Wiggins was able to learn that her name was Molly, and she was sixteen years old.

It was my second summer with the Irregulars. My fifteenth birthday was coming up, but I didn’t mention this fact, thinking that birthday observances were something only babies cared about. And yet, I suppose I was something of a child still, though physically I had begun to develop. When I lay on the mattress next to Holmes, I had started to feel things I could not say. He did not ask why I slept with my back to him, but sometimes he threw an arm over me. This raised my pulse considerably. He was a most observant boy, but I deluded myself into thinking he did not know about my infatuation.

Molly arrived, and the Irregulars went to pay their respects at the insistence of Wiggins and Anderson. Sal was curious, and Prof was shy. I was sceptical. Holmes greeted Mrs Turner and introduced us all.

She was a rather plain girl, not very pretty, but sweet, with a shy way of smiling at a boy that made his stomach turn over. It seemed to be doing strange things to Wiggins and Anderson, at least, and Prof began to blush the moment he was introduced.

“We’re the Baker Street Irregulars,” Holmes explained. “We look for trouble and solve crimes. If anyone bothers you, come to us and we’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling at us all. “You’re very kind.”Her eyes lingered a bit longer on Holmes.

We saw quite of bit of Molly. Mrs Turner had her doing the laundry and helping in the kitchen. The boarding house she ran was small, so the work wasn’t time-consuming, but Molly seemed to take it very seriously. Wiggins, Anderson, and Prof sat in Mrs Turner’s kitchen, watching her work, poised to run any errand necessary, until Mrs Turner sent them away.

Molly didn’t seem a bit flirtatious; she had a grave manner that was very different from other girls I’d known. I’d seen her talking to Holmes a few times, just short conversations, but every time my gut twisted to see the way she looked at him. And even though he complained about how boring girls were, he didn’t seem to mind talking with her.

We had finished our dinner one afternoon and the lot of us headed down to the basement flat, where it was cooler, and stretched out for a rest. I waited for Holmes, who’d had an errand to run for Mrs Hudson.

When Holmes didn’t come downstairs, I went up to look for him. Mrs Hudson said he hadn’t returned from his errand yet.

I peeked out the front door and saw him coming down the street. He was walking at a leisurely pace, allowing for his companion’s shorter strides. Molly was looking up at him with admiration.

Suddenly I was embarrassed and confused. Confused because I didn’t understand my own feelings, embarrassed because I wondered if my feelings were shameful. Molly was a nice girl, and I hated her.

Holmes was treating her like a lady, I saw. He did not hold her hand or stand closer than was proper, and he did not give her any leers. But she had his full attention. I hated him.

I fled into the house and ran down the stairs, threw myself on the mattress, oblivious to the stares of the others. I pretended to be asleep when Holmes came down the stairs and stretched out beside me. He opened a book and started to read.

That was only the beginning. He began to escort her on her errands— just him, none of the others. He would put aside anything he was doing if she was going somewhere. Still, he was always courteous, never taking liberties, as far as I could see.

I still was his partner on patrol each evening. He didn’t talk about her, and I wondered why. He didn’t talk much at all anymore. His eyes seemed distant, as if he were preoccupied with some problem.

Finally, I could stand no more. Trying to keep my voice casual, I said, “Molly seems like a nice girl.”

“She is,” he said.

“She seems fond of you.”

“Yes.”

My mouth was threatening to twitch down into an involuntary frown, the kind that meant I was going to cry if I wasn’t careful. I snatched a cigarette out of his pocket and put it in my mouth. I hadn’t actually started smoking, but I thought it might be time to give it a try.

Holmes lit a match and held it out for me. He looked unconcerned, but I could tell he was trying not to smile. I leaned towards the match and inhaled.

My first cigarette didn’t go as planned. Instead of suavely blowing out smoke, I began to cough violently and wheeze.

He grinned, but did not intervene. “Bad habit, Doc. Children shouldn’t smoke.”

I was going to deny being a child, but couldn’t speak for a few minutes. When I finally could speak, I said, “I’m old enough.” My voice came out high and feathery, the smoke still burning my lungs.

“You’re fifteen.”

“Almost sixteen. When did you start?”

“When I was eleven.”

“So, I’m old enough.”

He shook his head and lit his pipe. “It’ll stunt your growth. You’re already too short for fifteen. How do you ever expect to get taller if you smoke?”

This was true, but it hurt. I’d finally edged Sal out by a half an inch, but Holmes had grown a half a foot since I’d known him. “I don’t care,” I said.

He looked at me curiously. “You having a grump?”

I shrugged.

We walked a bit then, moving from the pub down towards Hoffman’s. We saw a couple walking together, holding hands. It was the greengrocer’s girl, I saw, and a young man I’d seen a few times but whose name I didn’t know. They paused in a recessed doorway, and I saw him lean down and kiss her. It looked so natural, her face tilted up towards him, his arm around her shoulders, drawing her in. I thought about Holmes standing there in the gaslight, leaning down, Molly looking up at him with rapt eyes.

“Is Molly your girl?” I asked, hating myself for needing to know.

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t.”

“Then it’s probably none of your business.”

I struggled to keep my breathing even. I could not look at him.

“You see, but you do not observe,” he said.

I didn’t know what this was supposed to mean, so I said nothing. We spent the rest of patrol simply walking. It started to rain, and we made our way back to 221B.

“You’re shy,” Molly said to me one morning. She’d brought some eggs over for Mrs Hudson. I was watching the toast so it wouldn’t burn. The others hadn’t come upstairs yet.

My face burned and I stammered when I spoke. “N-not really.”

“You’re Sherlock’s friend. He told me about you. I’m sorry you had to run away from the mill. I almost had to work in one too, but Aunt Turner took me in.”

“You’re lucky,” I said.

“Sherlock is very intelligent. I didn’t think he looked like a boy who reads books, but I was wrong. I like to read, too. We’ve read some of the same books. I said I’d lend him _The Woman in White_ if he let me read _Murders in the Rue Morgue. _Have you read it?”

My heart sank. I thought of all the nights we’d spent reading that story together, and felt as if I’d been slapped. “I have.”

“Sherlock says he’s going to be a detective like Dupin. For that he has to study lots of things like chemistry and biology. I’m hoping to go to school next year and study those things, too. I’m planning to be a doctor.”

My heart continued to beat, as if it hadn’t yet figured out that it was doomed. The toast was beginning to burn.

“He’s learning French,” she said. “And he said he’ll teach me.”

The others were coming up the stairs now. I went out the back door and sat on the stoop. I could hear their voices, Sal complaining because the toast was burnt, Mrs Hudson reassuring her that she would make some more.

Prof stuck his head out the door. “You having breakfast?”

I shook my head.

It was obvious to everyone that I was unhappy. Dicky and Sal began to tease me, saying I must be in love with someone. This was perfectly true, but they had my object wrong. They assumed I was in love with Molly and jealous that she and Holmes were so friendly.

Prof, being a practical fellow, turned his attentions to another girl who lived a few doors down. Her name was Daisy. She was even plainer than Molly, but her father was a clerk in some law office, with enough money to send Daisy to school.

Sal started mooching around with me more often. I think she felt sorry for me, and she was tired of Anderson, who seemed to talk of nothing but girls with Wiggins.

“They’re idiots,” she told me. “All of them.”

We walked down to number 179, where an old building had been burned out in a fire a few weeks earlier. They’d put up barriers to keep people out, but we watched as they pulled the walls down.

“We should come back tonight and explore,” she said.

“Why? It’s just charred wood and ashes.”

“What if somebody hid gold in the walls? Maybe a crook lived here a hundred years ago, and he hid his loot so nobody would find it, but then he got killed, and nobody knew about it.”

It was an intriguing, if improbable idea. “What about patrol?”

She rolled her eyes. “Holmes is over at Mrs Turner’s for supper tonight. Molly plays piano, and he’s bringing his violin so they can play duets.”

“And the others?”

“Anderson and Prof will take one end of the street. Wiggins will volunteer to watch the other end so he can see some girl. We’ll walk the middle.” She grinned at me. “Come on, Doc. You’re not scared, are you?”

We walked between the two ends of the street a few times, just so the others would know we were on the job, and then, as it grew dark, we returned to number 179. Sally had brought a lantern. I looked at the ruin of the building. “We’re going to be filthy if we climb around in there.”

She shrugged, unconcerned. “We can wash up at the pump. We’ll say we got wet… well, we can figure something out.”

Cautiously, I followed her into the ruins. The roof being gone, we were able to look up and see the stars above us. We lit our lantern and got our bearings. The inner walls had mostly fallen, but part of the stairway still stood. 

Excitement was what I felt, more than fear. Holmes was always telling me I was too young, too little, too innocent to do any of the things that seemed interesting. I saw this as an opportunity. Sal would no doubt boast of what we’d done, and the others might call us fools, but they would be jealous of our adventure. She was a daredevil, and the boys clearly admired this trait in her. I was tired of being the baby of the group.

We first explored the interior side of the outer walls, ripping away the plasterboard in places. The studs still seemed solid, and I supposed the builders would simply put up new wallboard to cover them.

“Nothing,” Sal said as we came to the end of the walls. “Upstairs is more likely.” She headed for the stairs. I followed.

She stepped over the first stair onto the second. When my foot landed on the first step, it let out a creak. “Don’t worry,” she said. “They’re sturdy, and we’re light enough.”

How she knew this in the darkness I did not know. My heart pounding, I followed her to the first landing, which still seemed solid. The floor boards were entirely gone on one side of the stairs. On the other side, the floor remained attached to the landing, but appeared to be burnt out in places where only the studs showed. One wall was scorched, and the wallpaper was peeling off.

“That wall,” Sal said. She walked along a cross-beam and began shining her lamp at the place she’d indicated.

To me it did not look promising. The idea of robber’s gold seemed even more improbable. But this was an adventure, and I wasn’t about to be the one who suggested we go home. Thinking that we should not put too much weight on one cross-beam, I chose another one and inched my way across. By the time I was standing the middle of the beam, it became clear that this was a bad idea. I heard a cracking sound, and then a bang as the beam broke. My stomach lurched as I went down, through the floor.

I fell on my arm and felt a crunch, heard it snap. This wasn’t the worst, though, as I felt the rest of the ceiling fall on top of me. I heard Sal calling my name, but couldn’t talk. I couldn’t even move.

It seemed like a long time I lay there, but after minutes of silence, I heard voices. Sal’s voice, shouting my name. The rubble was moved, and I cried out weakly, “I’m here!” I saw lanterns then, and many faces— Sal, Wiggins, Anderson, Prof. And there were Holmes. Molly, Mrs Turner, and Mrs Hudson as well. Someone must have called the police, for Lestrade and two others were warning people back and trying to extricate me.

I cried out when they put hands under my arms to pull me. Molly was sent to fetch Dr Pritchard, and Lestrade carried me back to 221B. Though I was filthy, Mrs Hudson instructed him to lay me on her sofa, where we boys were never permitted to sit. She was weeping a bit.

Holmes was loudly chastising Sal. “Why did you talk him into this? You know better!” He smacked her with the back of his hand. “Idiots, both of you!” He would not look at me. I was ashamed to be the cause of so much trouble, embarrassed that he was so angry. Maybe he would throw us out of the Irregulars for our little adventure.

Seeing his anger, the others were silent. The looks they gave me were pitying. Sal sat on the floor, her head lowered, hugging her knees, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

The doctor arrived. I had been focusing all my energy on _not crying_, not wanting to appear to be a baby as well as an idiot. I bit my lip to avoid crying out when he felt my arm. He asked the policemen to hold me still while he popped the ends of the bone back together.

I did scream when this happened, then began to sob. He made up a batch of plaster and dipped strips of cloth in it to wind around my arm. “Good thing it was an arm, not a leg,” he said. “This ought to heal in a few weeks.” While it hardened, he explained to Mrs Hudson that I would need to wear a sling as long as the cast was on. I must not get the plaster wet. He left her with a bottle of something she could give me if I was in pain.

The pain was great, but the humiliation was greater. Mrs Hudson shooed the Irregulars out of the room, told them to get ready for bed. Mrs Turner and Molly went home. The police left, and the doctor followed them.

Mrs Hudson tutted a bit as she used a wet flannel to wipe the soot off of me and helped me out of the rest of my dirty clothing. I snivelled a bit as she did this, but felt too weary to care. She brought blankets and a pillow. “You’ll sleep up here tonight, dear.” She patted my face. “Call if you need me. I’ll hear.” She gave me a dose of medicine and I drifted off to sleep.

It was still dark when I awoke. My arm hurt badly, and I was starting to feel the other bumps and bruises I had acquired in the fall. I whimpered a bit, and someone leaned over me.

“Watson?” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Hush,” Holmes said. “Do you need some medicine?”

“No.” The pain was something I needed to feel. I needed a distraction from everything else I was feeling.

He knelt by my side, but said nothing. I felt his hands on my forehead, then on my wrist. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “If you ever do anything so stupid again, I’m going to slap you into next week.”

I couldn’t speak. Tears began to sneak out of my eyes. I had meant to show him I was grown, but instead I had proved that I was not only a baby, but an idiot as well.

But instead of leaving me, he continued to sit at my side, gently stroking my hair.

Mrs Hudson appeared at he door. “How is he?” she asked.

“In some pain,” Holmes said. “But none the worse for wear.”

She forced me to take a spoonful of the medicine, and I began to grow sleepy at once. She smiled at Holmes, but didn’t tell him to leave.

“My intrepid doctor,” he whispered. I could see him smiling in the dark, and began to think everything might be all right. As I drifted off, I felt his lips touch my forehead.

I was allowed to get up and walk about, but was taken off patrol for a week. Holmes took Sal as his partner, insisting that she needed some re-edification. She did not argue with him.

Prof, Anderson, and Wiggins were excited to report that human bones had been found in the basement of the building, as well as several old coins and a mummified cat. Sal felt vindicated when she heard this, and Prof gave me one of the pennies they’d found. It was completely black so you couldn’t even tell whose profile was on it. Holmes said it was King George the Third.

Lestrade stopped by to see how I was doing and gave Mrs Hudson a pie his wife had baked. The doctor came back to examine me, said my arm should be perfectly straight when healed, gave me a humbug, and patted me on the head.

Holmes spent hours sitting with me, usually reading aloud as I looked on. My reading had improved to the point where I didn’t need his guidance at all, but I didn’t complain.

“How is Molly?” I said, trying to be charitable. I was still jealous, but hoped that I could at least retain Holmes as a friend. I hoped, too, that he hadn’t divined my feelings.

“She’s fine.” He raised his eyes from the book and gave me a searching look. After a moment he smiled. “She’s not my girl, you know.”

“What is she?”

“An experiment.”

“An experiment,” I repeated, not understanding.

“Yes. I’m done gathering data, however.”

He would say no more about this, and I didn’t like to ask.

Another week went by and I was back on patrol. Holmes had decided that he and I would take one end of the street and let Sal and Dicky walk the middle. Angelo had set a couple chairs outside his restaurant, so we sat there.

I was anxious to return to our former comfortable conversations, but couldn’t hit on a topic that seemed to engage Holmes. After several openings were unanswered, I fell silent, fearing that our relationship was changed by the accident. It almost seemed as if he was making up his mind about something, unwilling to speak until he’d reached a conclusion.

“I want to tell you something,” he said suddenly. “But you have to promise me that you won’t say anything about this. Not to anyone.”

“I promise.” I would have signed my name in blood if he’d asked me, and broken my other arm to prove my loyalty.

“Here, give me your pinky finger.” He hooked his finger together with mine. “This is how they make promises in Japan. It means that if you break your promise, your finger will be chopped off. Do you still promise?”

I nodded. “I promise.”

He let go of my finger and took out his tobacco. “It’s a story.”

I waited while he lit his pipe, thinking it was going to be a story with a lesson about how children shouldn’t go poking around dangerous, burnt-out houses.

“It happened in Ancient Greece,” he continued once the pipe was lit. “There were two friends, Damon and Pythias. The King was the law back then, and Pythias got in trouble because people said he was plotting against the king. This was probably true, seeing as how the king was a tyrant. Do you know what that means, Doc?”

I didn’t.

“A tyrant is a bad king, one who thinks everyone is out to get him and locks them up without any due process. No courts, just a king. Anyway, he had Pythias arrested and sentenced him to die. Pythias was a decent bloke though, and wanted to go home and pay off his debts, kiss his mum goodbye, and so forth. The king said no, of course, because he knew that Pythias had no intention of returning to be put to death. But Pythias had a friend named Damon. They were best friends. They even swore an oath—”

“With pinkies?”

“They weren’t Japanese, Doc. The Greeks do it differently. As I was saying, they were best friends. People never saw one without the other. If you pinched one, the other said _ouch.”_

“If you never saw one without the other, where was Damon when his friend got arrested?”

“That’s what I’m telling you, that he had to go home first. Damon stepped up and said, _I’ll be a hostage until my friend returns. And if he doesn’t return, you can kill me in his place._ So the king thinks this is funny, and he knows Pythias isn’t coming back, but he lets him go, puts Damon in the dungeon. So when Pythias didn’t come back, the king gets ready to chop his head off—”

“Wait. He didn’t come back? But he was his friend, and he promised—”

“Don’t get excited, Doc. He was captured by pirates, but he fought them all and ran them through with his sword. That’s another story I’ll tell you sometime. And then he had to swim to shore—”

“Why didn’t he just take the pirates’ ship, if they were all dead?”

“That would be stealing. He wasn’t a thief. So he swam to shore and ran all the way to the king. Meanwhile, the king was getting ready to put the blindfold on Damon—”

“Why did he put a blindfold on him? He was just going to cut his head off, wasn’t he?”

Holmes puffed his pipe, considering this. “I don’t know. It’s traditional to make somebody wear a blindfold when you’re going to execute them.” He glared at me. “Are you going to let me finish?”

I almost said that I could guess the ending, but it isn’t polite to do that when someone is telling a story, so I just nodded.

“Damon got there just in time and the king was so impressed at his loyalty hat he didn’t kill either one of them. He said that he’d never seen such a great love between friends, and he made them dukes, or judges, or something.”

“And then what happened?”

He gazed at me, his face unreadable. “They loved each other until the day they both died. And the gods made them into stars when they died because they couldn’t bear to send them to the underworld.” He pointed to two bright stars. “That’s them, right there.”

“Honest?”

“Honest. That’s because they loved one another. They were catamites, you know.”

“What’s a catamite?”

“It’s a man who loves another man.”

“You mean a sodomite?”

He nodded. “But the Greeks didn’t throw men in gaol for doing that. They thought it was more admirable than loving a woman.” He held his pipe, looking at me for a long time while I was thinking about this. “Do you love me, John?” He said this softly.

I was surprised that he used my name; I didn’t have to think what to say. “I do love you.”

“Do you love me the way Damon loved Pythias?”

There was a possibility that he would laugh and call me a sodomite, but I nodded. “Yes,” I whispered.

He leaned towards me. I thought he was going to whisper something in my ear, but instead, he kissed me.

“I love you, John,” he whispered. Then he gave me a look more serious than any I had ever seen on his face. “Do you want to swear a Greek oath?”

“Is it stronger than a Japanese oath?”

“Much stronger.” He took my hand in his, placing his fingers on my pulse. I did the same. “I, Sherlock Holmes, do hereby swear—”

“What are we swearing by?”

“The stars, those two I showed you. And all the rest of them. Where was I? …do swear by all the stars to always love John Watson. Even after death. Now, you say it.”

“I, John Watson, do swear by the stars to always love Sherlock Holmes. Even after death.”

We kissed again.

“Did you know,” he said, “that stars are burning balls of gas millions of miles away?”

“Honest?”

“Honest.”


	7. Black Hand

Things did not change much after our declaration of feelings. Outwardly, we were as usual, or tried to be. Both of us understood that two boys in love do not evoke the smiles and tender looks that a normal courting couple sees. The men in the park hid for a reason.

The two of us had been inseparable before, and we continued to share a bed, walk the middle patrol, and read together. The moony looks I’d been giving Holmes that had provoked so much sniggering among the Irregulars were easier to suppress, now that I knew he loved me.

We held hands, but only if we could be sure no one was watching. On patrol, we sometimes went down an alley where we could steal a kiss or two. I smile now, to think how innocent we both were. We both knew about things carnal, having grown up on the streets, where one can see couples in congress in darkened doorways. In the park at night, my eyes, already jaded when I came to London, had been educated in every perversion imaginable.

Holmes told me that his uncle Rudy’s problems were more than just financial. When he was nine, one of Rudy’s _problems_ had cornered him, had run hot hands over his body, fingers into unmentionable places, taking his pleasure. He began to think of escape after that. Like me, he’d avoided the men in the park. Though some boys made a living that way, it could hardly be called a _decent_ living.

We were all old enough now to find jobs that paid more. Wiggins worked at Rafferty’s, often sleeping there, and Dicky had a job as a night guard at a warehouse on Northumberland. With the help of Daisy’s father, Prof found a job at a surgery, cleaning and running errands. His father had been released from debtor’s prison, but struggled to find work, so Prof worked full time to provide for his large family, and even that was not enough. HIs younger brothers and sisters found work where they could.

Sal had become pretty almost overnight. She no longer wore her hair short, and allowed Mrs Hudson to fit her in skirts and shirtwaists. Still, she swore that she would never let a man support her. Nor would she consider being a prostitute, like her sister. She approached Angelo, asked him if he would hire her. He had her work in his kitchen, prepping vegetables and making pasta.

Holmes was building his reputation as a sleuth into what he hoped would be a career. _Consulting detective_, he called himself. Lestrade referred small mysteries to him and sometimes asked his advice on a crime scene. If what I did can be called _assistance, _I assisted him_._ When we called on neighbours with missing cats and other small mysteries, he introduced me as his _colleague_. Our fees were small, but our reputation spread.

Late one autumn morning I was accompanying Holmes back from Paddington, where he’d made a delivery for Barkley, the chemist. It was a bright, crisp day, and we were taking our time, enjoying the weather.

I had turned seventeen just weeks earlier, and Holmes wanted to talk about university. I was less eager to discuss the future. I still felt wretchedly unprepared for higher studies, no matter how Holmes flattered my intelligence. I sometimes thought he was more enthused about the idea of me being a doctor than I was.

“You’re just having cold feet,” he informed me. “You think you can’t measure up to all those public school toffs, but you can. I’ll bet half of them have never even seen a dead body. How many do you think have been kidnapped by a gang, or have fallen through the floor of an abandoned building? How many have—”

“I can’t see how these experiences in any way qualify me for university,” I said. “They make me look a bit of a fool, really. Falling through floors, for example. I should have my head examined.”

“You’ll be fine, Watson.” He reached down and squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry.”

As we turned onto Baker Street, Sal came running towards us, still dressed in her apron and hat, obviously straight from work. “You need to talk to Angelo. He won’t tell me what’s wrong, but he’s obviously scared to death.”

“What happened?” asked Holmes.

“He won’t say,” she replied. “Well, he’s mostly speaking Italian, so I don’t know what he’s saying. When we opened the restaurant this morning, someone had left a hand print on the front door— black paint.”

“A black hand,” Holmes said. “What did he say when he saw it?”

“I wasn’t there. I noticed it when I went through the door, of course. His son Mario was already trying to paint over it. Angelo was in the kitchen, sitting in a chair and groaning, and his daughter was talking to him. The only thing I caught was that his daughter was telling him he should go to the police, and he was refusing.”

Instead of heading down Baker Street, we continued on Marylebone for another block until we reached Angelo’s. As we went through the door, we paused to look at the mark, which was still visible beneath a new coat of whitewash. It seemed to hover, a faint shadow ghosting through the paint.

As Sal had said, Angelo was in a pitiable state, weeping and shaking, making the sign of the cross over his heart and praying in Italian.

“What is the Black Hand?” Holmes asked.

Angelo shook his head. “We do not speak of it.”

“You came here when you were a young man,” Holmes continued. “Why did you leave Italy?”

“I make a mistake,” he said. “I come here and find a new life, and now—” He covered his face with his hands. “Now, I pay,” he sobbed.

Holmes nodded. “They’re threatening you.”

“Do not speak,” Angelo whispered. “It was a mistake.”

“Your daughter is right. You should tell Lestrade. There are laws—”

“No police,” he said hoarsely. He jumped to his feet and began to pace. “There are those who work outside of the law, even in a good country like this. Even here, there are spies who see, and people who make their own law.”

He could not be reasoned with, we realised. He begged us not to go to the police, and, against our better judgement, we agreed.

As we walked back to Baker Street, Holmes was sunk in thought. I remained quiet, knowing that at times like this, he needed to be left alone.

Once we were sitting in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen, drinking tea, he began to speak. “Angelo came here when he was in his early twenties. He told me that he worked as a cook until he was finally able to buy his own restaurant. I asked him once before why he’d left Italy and he said that there was more opportunity here for a man to start his own business. That may be true, but I think that was not his only reason. He did not like to discuss his life in Italy, told me he his parents were dead and he had no siblings. Like most liars, he would forget this story when in conversation. He’s told me about a brother, Mario, after whom he named his son. He once referred to a niece. My theory is that he came here to escape the Black Hand, that he severed ties with his family to avoid drawing attention.”

“What’s the Black Hand?”

“A secret society. There are many such societies in Italy, some of them with criminal ties, some that are perfectly above-board. My guess is that he got into some trouble, became indebted to them, and had to do something he now regrets. Someone might be blackmailing him because of something he did there, or they have just found him and are seeking revenge. The Black Hand is known for blackmail— and murder.”

“Maybe we should go to Lestrade.”

He shook his head. “Scotland Yard is aware of Italian gangs, but woefully uninformed about how they operate. I’ve talked to Deluca, the fellow who fixes shoes. He pays a local gang for protection, in return for some kind of favours, I assume. I suspect that Angelo is in a similar arrangement. If that’s the case, they’ve probably sold him out. In any event, going to the police would be like signing his death warrant.”

Returning to the matter of what to do, I said, “If we’re not telling Lestrade, how are we going to help Angelo? We can’t let these gangsters terrorise his family.”

“No, we can’t let that happen. Angelo’s got a family here— son, daughter, son-in-law, a grandchild on the way. He’s going to take matters into his own hands, I’m afraid.”

“You mean, he’s going to kill his blackmailer.”

“It’s possible. We’re going to watch him to make sure he’s safe and doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“And if he does?”

“There are two of us, Doc. We’re younger and stronger. I’m sure we can think of some way to stop him. Or help him.”

That night found us lurking in an alley across the way from Angelo’s. The restaurateur lived upstairs from his establishment, and we had watched his lights go out. Now we waited. I felt on edge, thinking how vulnerable we were, unarmed and uncertain what we would face. At the same time, it was exhilarating to think of us here, staking out an Italian secret society, waiting for a gang to make its move. I smiled, wondering how many of my medical school mates would have done what I was now doing.

“Look,” said Sherlock. We flattened ourselves into the shadows, watching as someone came down the alley next to the restaurant.

“Is that—?” I asked.

“It’s Angelo. Let’s follow him.”

“What’s he doing?”

Holmes shrugged. “We’ll see.”

We followed him south through Marylebone into Mayfair, and then east.

“Why doesn’t he just get a cab?” I asked, weary after miles of walking.

“Doesn’t want to be traceable,” Holmes replied. “He must know his victim.”

“Victim?”

“Why else would he be sneaking out at night with a knife? He intends to kill the person threatening him. This tells us that he knows the person, and that he is reasonably sure that his blackmailer hasn’t yet betrayed him. He’s made his demand, and is waiting for Angelo to respond. That’s why he feels secure going to him.”

“Jesus, he’s gonna kill him? Does this qualify as _something stupid_?”

“To protect his family,” Holmes replied. “We may consider that stupid, but obviously he’s weighed the risks and considers his own life worth the price of their safety, if it comes to that.”

We were in Clerkenwell, a neighbourhood of small, tidy, two-storied homes and blocks of flats. Still keeping ourselves well behind Angelo, we almost missed seeing him slip into another alley. To enter the alley meant to reveal ourselves. I gave Holmes a questioning look. He shook his head.

We waited several minutes, then entered the alley. There was no sign of Angelo.

“Damn,” said Holmes. “He’s in one of these flats. Let’s look for a light.”

It was well after midnight. At this hour, few flats showed lights. We checked the sides of the block, but could not tell where he’d gone. We waited.

After nearly twenty minutes had passed, we saw him come out through the rear door. As he entered the alley, we revealed ourselves.

“_Coglioni_!” He said, gesturing. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

“I had hoped that we might stop you before you did something stupid,” Holmes said. “Who was he?”

“Was?” Angelo laughed. “You think I killed him? I intended to give him the money he demanded, but unfortunately he was not at home.”

“You broke into his house—”

“Yes, it was a crime. I intended only to surprise him and force him to make a deal, accept less.”

“Is that why you brought this?” Reaching into Angelo’s pocket, Holmes pulled out a flick knife.

“He threaten me, I threaten him,” said Angelo. “I’m not stupid. Before he go to another gang, I make a deal with him.”

“As if any blackmailer can be appeased by money,” Holmes said. “You were going to kill him.”

“_Bene_,” said Angelo, resigned. “What man will not kill for his family? I broke in, and I would kill him without even speaking to him, but he is not at home. Now you stupid boys need to go home to your mama and forget you saw me here.”

“Angelo.” Holmes sighed. “What do you think is going to happen? You’ll simply return to your place and go to bed? Where do you think this fellow is right now? Perhaps he’s breaking into _your_ flat. We’re just going with you to make sure you’re safe. And tomorrow, we’re going to talk to Lestrade.”

“No,” he said. “You talk to police, I am dead.”

“Then you have to answer my questions,” replied Holmes. “Tell me why you really left Italy.”

The streets were deserted. We began to walk, and Angelo told us his story. “I was no older than you when a man named Luca offer me a job. There are no jobs in my village, so it is an offer I cannot refuse, as they say. My friend Georgio is also working for them, so I think it is all legit. At first I am carrying messages. These are all written strangely, with pictures, and always signed with a black hand. _Mano Nera_. I have heard of this, but knew nothing about it. Nobody talk about it. Sometimes Luca tell me to beat somebody up so they will pay, make him an example for others who owe. I think, this is how the world works. People have money, or they are broke. Those who are broke borrow from those who have, and must pay. I see nothing wrong with this.”

Holmes nodded. “It’s very common, even here. Loan sharks provide a necessary service, for a fee. When did shaking people down become murder?”

Angelo spoke softly. “I kill a man who cannot pay. Most families accept this, but his wife go to the police. The police are becoming tired of murder upon murder, always retaliation, death for death. So they come after me, make me an example. They don’t really expect to put Mano Nera out of business, but just cut back on it.”

“So, you ran away to avoid going to jail.”

“Yes. Mano Nera have people everywhere, and they help me. Here, I pay a man named Scavo.”

“Is that who you were going to kill?” I asked.

“No. Scavo die last week. Run over by a cab. Not accident. The man who threaten me named Renato. He tell me that if I do not pay him, he go to police and turn me in.” He gestured dramatically, raising his hands to heaven. “This— in return for making success here! They see I have money, and they pluck me like a ripe tomato.” He sighed. “This will never end, I can see.”

“Who is Renato working for? Another gang?”

“I don’t know. Could be any gang, maybe even Mano Nera. Scavo’s death means they will no longer protect, so I take into my own hands.” He frowned at us. “And you boys must not be mixed up in this. You stay away from Mano Nera.”

We turned ontoMarylebone, began walking towards the restaurant. Before we could approach, however, a constable stopped us and shone a light in our faces. “Are you Angelo Segreti?” he asked.

“What has happened?” Angelo asked. “Why are you here?”

“Never mind,” the constable said. “Just answer my question.”

“Yes, I am Angelo, and this is my restaurant. Is it a crime to walk at night when I am having trouble sleeping?”

The constable shone his light in Holmes’ face and in mine. “Only if you’ve murdered someone,” he said.

“Well, since I haven’t done that, perhaps you can let me into my house.”

“What’s happened, Constable?” Holmes asked.

“Murder,” he replied. “A corpse was found in the alley behind this building. He’s been identified as Gilberto Renato. Do you know him?”

Angelo gaped. Before he could speak, Holmes said, “I believe he doesn’t have to answer that, not until he has an attorney present.”

“Are you his attorney?”

“No. But until he has one, he’s not talking.”

“And who are you?”

Holmes drew himself up. “I’m Sherlock Holmes. This is my colleague, John Watson. Who’s in charge of this crime scene?”

Lestrade shook his head. “You two have a habit of winding up in places you don’t belong. What are you doing here?”

“Angelo’s our friend,” Holmes said. “We were all out for a walk.”

“Right. Then it stands to reason that you have evidence that will link Mr Segreti with Mr Renato. And if you do not reveal said evidence, you will not only be guilty of collusion, but you will also lose any possibility of working with Scotland Yard in the future.”

“You know of La Mano Nera?” Holmes asked. When Lestrade nodded, he continued. “Then you understand our reluctance to speak. It is a society dedicated to extortion and kidnapping. Certainly murder is one of their primary methods of persuasion. The man who was murdered is, no doubt, a member of that organisation or one like it. Our friend, Angelo, can hardly speak out because of what he will be subjected to if he does. Can you promise that you will allow us to speak off the record before you start making bumbling deductions based on incomplete evidence?”

Lestrade frowned and folded his arms, but did not speak for a moment. Finally he rubbed a hand across his forehead and sighed. “All right. Tell me what you know.”

“Off the record,” Holmes repeated.

The detective nodded. “Off the record.”

As Holmes began to explain the little we knew about Angelo’s troubles, Constable Jones brought over something to show Lestrade.

“A lockpick,” he said, holding up a burglar’s tool. “And this.” The second item was the flick knife we’d seen.

Lestrade held the lockpick up and frowned at us. “Explain. And at this point, I can’t guarantee that this will remain strictly between us. So talk, unless you want your friend arrested for murder.”

“Was Renato killed with a knife?” Holmes asked. “That one appears to be clean.”

The detective narrowed his eyes. “If you’re going to be his alibi, talk.”

“He went to talk to Renato. The man is a dangerous criminal who threatened Angelo’s family, so he naturally brought the knife. He’d be a fool not to bring something to protect himself with.”

“And the lock pick?”

Holmes sighed. “He used it to break into Renato’s flat. That’s breaking and entering, not murder. It’s not even burglary, since he didn’t take anything. He only intended to talk to the man.”

Lestrade laughed. “So, his alibi is that he was an hour away, breaking into Renato’s house while Renato was being killed outside of his restaurant?”

Holmes and I looked at one another. Angelo might go to jail for breaking and entering, but it would be a shorter sentence than he would get if convicted of murder. The death penalty was a likely outcome, given the fact that a knife was found on him.

“Yes,” Holmes said. “That is his alibi. We followed him there and walked back here with him. We can vouch for him; he couldn’t have been here when Renato was murdered.”

We watched as Angelo was put in darbies and taken away, protesting his innocence.

“You two are in over your heads here,” Lestrade said. “I ought to have Mrs Hudson keep you under house arrest for a week.”

“We’re not children,” Holmes pointed out.

Lestrade opened the rear door of the paddy wagon and indicated that we should get in.

“Are we under arrest?” Holmes asked. “You haven’t read us our rights or even said what we’re being charged with. We told you what you asked—”

“By law, you are children,” the detective replied. “But I’m not going to saddle Mrs Hudson with you. You’ll stick with me and keep your traps shut. Ride in here or sit in a cell. And if you interfere in any way with what is about to happen, you will be no good as a witness for your friend.”

“Fine,” Holmes muttered. “At least this way we might get a glimpse of what’s happening.”

Seeing what was happening proved difficult. The van was driven to a quiet street and parked out of sight. Lestrade had locked us inside, so even my friend’s lock picking skills could not get us out. It was painful to watch him fidgeting, knowing that some grand police action was happening just yards away. I think he might have tried to pick the lock if he hadn’t been worried about Angelo.

“They’re going to interview us,” Holmes said quietly. “We should make sure our story is consistent.”

I agreed. “Will they interview us separately?”

“Lestrade is no fool,” he replied. “Here is what happened. We were on patrol and saw Angelo leave his house. Knowing that he’d been threatened earlier, we followed to make sure nobody attacked him. His destination was Clerkenwell. We saw him go down an alley and then lost him. When he reappeared, he told us what we already explained to Lestrade. Do you remember?”

“He said he was going to convince Renato to settle the debt for less than agreed on.”

“Right. But Renato wasn’t there, so he left and found us waiting for him. This is important: he never said anything about killing Renato. He brought the knife for protection.”

“To protect himself,” I repeated. “And then what?”

“We walked back with him to make sure he was safe.”

He made me repeat the entire story to make sure I didn’t get any of the details wrong. “Are we lying?” I asked.

“Of course not.”

“But I think Angelo would have killed him if he’d found him,” I said. “He said he would, to protect his family.”

“Hypotheticals don’t matter in law,” Holmes replied. “His intent was to make a deal. Just stick to the story. Don’t let him trick you.”

We both started when we heard shots fired. Men poured out of the house with their hands raised. There were some moments of confusion where we could not tell what was happening, but then order was restored and we could hear Lestrade barking commands. We heard the thudding of nightsticks against bodies and the clacking of darbies. The doors of our prison were suddenly opened. We were yanked out of the van, which was then filled with men who were, presumably, gang members.

Lestrade escorted us to Scotland Yard, where he insisted that we give our separate statements before leaving. I was terribly nervous, but Lestrade didn’t press me as I’d feared. I related the events of the evening as Holmes and I had discussed them.

Afterwards, Holmes asked about the raid. “Were they Mano Nera?”

“Corvini. They’ve been moving in on Mano Nera. We’ve been planning this for weeks. We had a man on the inside, giving us information. Your friend Angelo just got caught in the middle of something bigger. Renato wasn’t working for either gang, just another Luigi trying to get some quick cash. Stupid of him to step into gang territory.”

“What about Angelo?”

“Breaking and entering will get him less than a year, since no burglary took place. He’s very lucky you two happened to follow him.” He gave us a severe look.

We didn’t see Angelo until a few days later. I was afraid he’d be angry with us, but he greeted us with smiles.

“Lestrade says they’ve got the major players of the gang rounded up,” Holmes told him. “Your family should be safe. But we’ll keep an eye on the restaurant. You don’t need to worry.”

“Grazie,” he said. “Mario and Martina will manage the restaurant while I’m on holiday.” He grinned.

“Holiday?” I said. “You think gaol is a holiday?”

“Compared with my usual work day, this will be easy. Much shorter.” He held out his hand to Holmes, then shook my hand as well. “Thank you, my friends. Without you, I would be dead.”

The excitement of the evening faded as we walked back home, and my thoughts returned to university. I knew my days on Baker Street were running out, and that everything I’d grown used to was about to change. In one year, I would be starting medical school.

In a rush, I began to miss it all terribly— Baker Street, my friends, Mrs Hudson, evening patrol. So acutely did I feel impending desolation that I had to stifle a sob.Swallowing, I coughed to cover my sorrow, hoping that Holmes would not notice the tears that had sprung into my eyes.

He slung an arm around my shoulders and I remembered the first time he’d done that, when I met him and we walked towards Mrs Hudson’s house. I remembered his words to Lestrade, _he’s mine. _I’d always been his, from that very moment. I was a neophyte, illiterate and naive, having no idea what sort of life I was beginning. And now, thanks to Holmes, I had a future.

It was like catching a branch on the way over a cliff, clinging for a few moments, looking up and then down, before plunging into the unknown. I knew that the future could not be avoided. I felt the significance of things that had passed, and knew I would never forget where I’d come from. But memories are pale ghosts, serving only to remind us that we haven’t understood what they meant as we lived them.

Holmes pulled me closer as we rounded the corner. As if he had read my thoughts, he ducked and whispered in my ear, “Always, John. This will never change.”


	8. The Final Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst, yes. Lots of Angst. But we all know that nobody dies here. Not tonight.
> 
> Note: this is the most graphic chapter in the story; still, not very explicit. Sex between teens.

It was inevitable from the beginning, but the dissolution of the Irregulars happened more quickly than I’d expected. Sometimes, when we were on patrol or investigating a burglary, it seemed as if we would be doing this forever, but there came a day when I could no longer sustain this illusion. This moment comes to every boy as he passes out of childhood and finds his footing in the world of adults. I felt a strange tug of emotions, pulled between the attachments I’d made on Baker Street, which would soon grow more distant, and my fears for the destination I could not yet see.

Spring was turning into summer when I was finally forced to consider my future.

“Wiggins has a new job,” Holmes told me one evening as we returned to 221B. “Barber’s assistant.”

“O’Shea’s?” I remembered Wiggins cutting my hair soon after I joined the Irregulars. He’d worked for Rafferty, the cabinet maker, for a couple of years, but always talked about being a barber.

Holmes nodded. “Dicky’s applying to the police academy, and Sal, too. She’s not going to make it since she’s female, but eventually I think she could convince them. She’s tough and ambitious, and won’t take no for an answer. Lestrade will help her. And Old Prof is starting at the University of London this fall. You should think about that, too, Doc. You’re old enough, and you know enough to pass the entrance exams.”

“School costs money,” I said. “How is Prof paying?”

He smiled. “Mrs Hudson and Lestrade have been keeping a fund for years, contributions being collected from the citizens of Baker Street towards our eventual futures. If you get into school, there will be money to pay for it.”

This lightened my mind a bit. I’d thought about university ever since Holmes had declared that I was going to be a doctor, but had no hope of seeing that realised, lacking the money for such a life. I’d applied to the U of London and King’s College, but didn’t meet their criteria. Just as I was losing all hope, the letter from Edinburgh had arrived. I hadn’t mentioned it to Holmes.

“What about you?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to university? You’re older than me.”

He shrugged. “I’m not cut out for the academic life. Though it would be good fun to muck about in labs with experiments. But I think I’d be a fish out of water, Watson.”

“I don’t understand why. You fit in everywhere, with all kinds of people. You’re a chameleon, Holmes.” I laughed. “You’d have all the posh boys thinking you’d graduated from Eton and that your father is an Earl or a Duke. I can see you now, describing the estate where you grew up, speaking longingly of your favourite horse.”

He chuckled. “I could do it, if I wanted to. It might be a lark. Ultimately, though, it would be a waste of money. I might pick up some knowledge, but I’d never stay for a diploma. I’m better off educating myself.”

“But what will you do? You can’t do this—” I gestured at the shops and businesses— “You can’t do it forever. None of us can.” This realisation hit me with force. For me, school was a necessity, not a potential lark. My life of adventure on Baker Street would eventually end, and without any skills other than those I had, I was condemned to a dull existence as a tradesman, or possibly a tutor.

He leaned against the building and lit a cigarette. “I know what I am, Watson, and I know what I can and cannot become.”

My heart felt as if it were clenching its way up my throat. “What will you become?”

“A detective.” He grinned. “Not a policeman, but a private, _consulting_ detective.” He blew out smoke. “ I invented the profession, and I’ll be the only one in the world. I’ll be the one the police come to when they’re in over their heads— which is almost always, so I’ll stay busy. I’ve already talked to Lestrade, and he thinks there are enough paying cases he can refer to me to keep me in grub and bub. Mrs Hudson says I can keep the basement room as long as I’m willing to do a few chores for her.”

“That’s— great.” It was comforting, in a way, to think of him still at 221B, still walking the street and solving mysteries. But going to school meant I wouldn’t be part of that any more. “I wish I could do that with you.”

He grabbed my hat off my head and ruffled my hair. “You will. Once you’ve walked away with your degree, you’ll come back and be my partner. I’ll need your medical expertise, you know. And there’s nobody braver than you, Doc, when a fellow’s in a tight spot.”

“Will you write to me?”

He scoffed. “I’m not much of a writer, Watson.” He dropped his cigarette to the pavement and crushed it under his boot. “And I’ll be busy. There’s a lot of crime, not just on Baker Street. Once people know Sherlock Holmes is the man who can solve things, they’ll be lined up outside of this door.”

He pulled the door open, the battered black door with the brass numbers that he had first led me to six years earlier. Every little thing had started to seem dear to me, and I wondered how I could bear the loss of a single doorknob or floorboard, let alone the loss of Holmes. I hurriedly brushed the tears from my eyes as I followed him inside.

He called out to Mrs Hudson that we were back. Her door was ajar, listening for our return— her boys, she still called us. We heard her cheerful _woo-hoo_ and headed downstairs.

It was just the two of us that evening. Prof had moved out his few possessions that afternoon, realising that he needed to live at home while he was at university. The others were rarely around these days, having taken more or less full-time jobs and moved into more convenient lodgings. Holmes turned on the light and dropped into his old reading chair. By the light of the lamp, his dark hair seemed touched with reddish-gold. His shirt had the top buttons undone, revealing a slice of pale skin. I remembered the boy I’d met in the street that day, his red suspenders and unlikely hat, his brazen manners. He had plucked me from a path that would have led nowhere and brought me here.

He did not pick up his book. Instead, he chewed his pipe a bit, regarding me.

“You’re sad.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“It’s set, then. The letter from Edinburgh. I knew you’d be accepted.”

“I don’t want to go.” My words came out like a sob. “Not without you.”

He rose from the chair and led me to the bed. Stretching out below me and pulling me down into his arms, he held me as I cried. It was embarrassing to be caught so bereft, but I felt like it didn’t matter any more. I was going away, he was staying, and everything would be different.

“Of course I’ll write to you,” he said, kissing my head. “Maybe even visit. It’s not so far away— we’ll still be on the same island, you know. You’ll come home for holidays, and I’ll go to visit you in between. It’s only a few years, John.”

I nodded, shuddered a sigh, and held him close. “It seems like a long time.”

“In the great scheme of time,” he said, “It’s just the blink of an eye. And before you leave, we’re going to have the best summer ever. Just the two of us against the rest of the world. You’ll never forget this summer, Watson, I promise you that. When we’re old men, shuffling along Baker Street, we’ll still talk about it sometimes, reminding each other of the summer of 1872.”

This made me laugh a bit. “We’ll still live here, at 221B?”

“Of course. I told you, this is my domain. When people say _Baker Street,_ everybody thinks _Sherlock Holmes. _A hundred years from now, my name will still be legend.” He grinned and dug his fingers into my armpits, making me yelp. “And you’ll be the famous Doctor Watson, my partner. You’ll write up our cases, and we’ll publish them in a magazine. They’ll erect statues—”

“Monuments to your ego,” I said, giggling. “Thank goodness one of us is humble.”

“Humility is overrated. And you’re too humble, Watson.” He kissed me again. “And nothing will part us. Not even death.”

He made sure the door was locked then, and pulled all my clothes off as quickly as he could. I grabbed for him, trying to do the same to his clothes, but he grinned and pushed me down, calling me _greedy. _Then he undressed slowly, pushing each button through its hole with absolutely no haste, sliding the shirt off of his shoulders. When he’d dropped his trousers, he stood before me naked, like an alabaster statue, his arms raised as if he were about to conduct an orchestra, his head thrown back. “Damon,” he whispered. “I am your Pythias.”

By this time, I was panting and almost ready to come without any physical contact. “Sherlock,” I whispered, reaching for him.

He fell on me, pinning me to the bed. Squeezing my prick in his hand, he said, “Not yet.”

We’d pleasured one another with hands and mouths before this, these being the best we could manage under the circumstances of everyday life at Baker Street. Now, however, he slicked his fingers with oil and slipped them inside of me, still squeezing the glans of my penis so I wouldn’t come. He opened me up, one finger at a time, his long fingers finding my prostate. He’d done this before, a couple of times. Unfortunately my stubby fingers didn’t allow me to reciprocate as completely.

This time was going to be different, I felt.

“I want you,” I whispered. “So much.”

“Hush, love. You’ll have me. Are you willing? I want to be inside you.”

I nodded and he kissed me deeply, his fingers scissoring in my hole. I was afraid that I might come before he entered me, but he was slow and careful, stimulating me just enough that I begged for him to push inside me.

“Take a deep breath,” Holmes whispered. “Look at me.”

I did. He was watching me, attentive to my reactions, his pupils so dilated that it made his eyes look like black pools. He climbed on top of me, moved my legs over his shoulders and lined himself up. I felt the tip of his penis begin to enter me.

His eyes fluttered closed as he kept himself still, moving into me gradually. He sighed, “Oh, John.”

I felt my body contracting involuntarily, trying to keep him out.

“Breathe,” he whispered. “Oh, God. Breathe.”

I focused on inhaling and exhaling, and my body began to open. The pressure as he slowly pushed in was intense, but I was too filled with awe at what was happening to feel anything but desire. Once he was inside me up to his bollocks, he waited, panting and taut with desire. “All right?”

“Kiss me,” I whispered.

His tongue probed my mouth, slipping against my tongue. I felt his penis twitch inside me, waiting impatiently.

“Perfect,” he said. “You’re absolutely perfect.” He kissed my eyes, my face, my neck, and then gave a thrust.

Covering my cry with his mouth, he began to move in and out slowly, rocking his hips. He was trying to control himself, to make it last. I dug my fingers into his shoulders, shaking with excitement. My own prick, trapped between us, was leaking.

“You’re so hot, so tight,” Sherlock growled. “Open your eyes. I want you to see me, John. I want to see you.”

What I saw was Sherlock as I’d never seen him. Needy, passionate, as if I were the one who could answer every question, solve every mystery for him.

He began to thrust into me harder now, and I knew I couldn’t last. “Please,” I said. “Oh, please.”

“John,” he said. “Yes, yes, yes.”

And then we were falling together, dying and flying past the stars and holding each other so tightly that we could barely breathe.

That was the summer when I first heard the name Moriarty.

Most of the criminals we dealt with were small-time felons— burglars, cracksmen, muggers. Though Sherlock craved a murder, Lestrade didn’t like us dealing with homicides. He felt responsible for us, and now that the old Irregulars were just Holmes and Watson, he was careful.

We hadn’t had any gang fights in a long time, and those just scuffles with other kids from nearby neighbourhoods. Though we were small change, even the bigger gangs avoided us because of our connection with the police. That meant we had to make treaties with some of our neighbours and be careful where we walked.

Holmes never worried much about this. He was friendly with the petty gangs, the boys who mostly picked pockets or begged for handouts. With a few of these he formed alliances, leaving them to their small crimes in exchange for information or protection. He didn’t tell Lestrade about this, but I always had a feeling that the cops intentionally looked the other way when Holmes wanted them to. Eventually, we had gathered a band of secondary Irregulars that controlled most of Marylebone.

There was a gang on the other side of the park called the Irish Pugilists, mostly known as the Pugs. I’d heard the name but didn’t know much about them until one day when we were on Albany Street just north of Euston Road. This was the eastern border of the territory we could consider home. Spying a man on the other side of the street, Holmes shoved his hands in his pockets and lowered his head, his way of warning me not to look around.

“He’s further south than he ought to be,” he muttered.

I knew better than to say anything when he assumed that posture, and silently walked beside him as we made a turn onto Marylebone Road and continued west. When we reached Northumberland Street, I could sense him relaxing.

“What was that about?” I asked him.

“He’s a Pug. Haven’t seen them so close to Marylebone before.”

“What do you think he was doing here?”

He shrugged. “Not sure. They’ve joined up with Moriarty, though, so they’re most likely expanding.”

“Who’s Moriarty?”

“They call him the Irishman. He runs some of the more powerful gangs in London. They say he studied mathematics at Oxford, but didn’t see any future in that, so he turned his skills towards crime. He doesn’t recruit people, he acquires them. He’s built his organisation as meticulously as any joint-stock company. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has some fairly elite investors. We’re going to have to keep an eye on him.”

“Keep an eye on… Moriarty?”

Holmes nodded. “We can’t control the whole of London, but I don’t want him over here.”

“From what you say, he’s not a common gangster,” I pointed out.

“No.” He looked thoughtful. “I suspect he’s the spider in the centre of a web with a thousand radiations. You won’t see him strutting down Albany Street, or anywhere else. All he does is plan, and leaves it to his minions to carry them out. He has greatly increased the efficiency of London gangs. I heard Lestrade talking about it.”

“Well, I’m sure if Scotland Yard is keeping an eye on him, we won’t have to worry.”

He was silent until we turned onto Baker Street. “What a plum it would be, Watson!” he suddenly exclaimed. He turned and viewed my perplexity. “Think of it— if we could take him down, we and our network of mercenaries!” He laughed out loud. “Lestrade would take credit, of course, but that’s fine. I’d just like to see his face when we pull in the big spider.”

“Could be dangerous,” I said.

“Dangerous, you say— and yet, here you are,” he replied. “You hunger for danger, Watson. You can’t stay away.”

I laughed, but could not deny it. Though I looked forward to being a full-time student, I was already thinking of how much I would miss this. “And how do you propose to take this spider down?”

“I don’t know yet. But it’s going to be our summer project.” He grinned me and I felt my heart flutter. “Our greatest adventure. My guess is that you’ll be the only first year at Edinburgh who’s taken down a major crime lord.”

He said nothing of this _project_ for a few days. We patrolled our neighbourhood and checked on the boys we had working the surrounding areas. From our conversations, Holmes drew several conclusions.

“He’s not in the kidnapping business,” he told me as we sat in the park, watching the boaters. “Neither children nor adults. None of the gangs seem to be doing much of that. I wonder if that’s a hard limit for him. It’s interesting to find a criminal who has a vision of himself as moral, perhaps, because he draws the line at certain criminal activities. He seems to have no issue with prostitution, gambling, loan collection, or any of the other typical gang activities.”

“So, he’s just a bigger gangster? He lets the gangs do whatever they want, as long as they also do what he wants?”

“That could be profitable,” Holmes replied. “As long as he has enough gangs paying in, he can make the rules.”

“What do they get out of it?”

“As I understand it, he feeds them jobs they wouldn’t otherwise find— murder, theft, intimidation, bribery. Things that pay well, but aren’t accessible to most petty criminals. I suppose you could call him a consulting criminal. People come to him, or his lieutenants, and ask for his services. He assigns the job to whichever gang is being more productive or cooperative. They’re given a portion of the proceeds. People who want crimes committed are rarely gifted at committing crimes. It’s like a company, with employees who do the work, and clients or stockholders, who determine what needs to be done. He’s the man in the middle, controlling it all. It’s actually quite ingenious.”

“Lovely.” I didn’t like hearing such unembarrassed praise. Holmes had occasionally appreciated a crime that rose above the petty level of most we dealt with, but he had never praised the criminal. “If he’s a genius, we should be careful.”

“We’re small change, Watson. His gangsters might notice us, if we’re careless, but we’re just a motley band of low-lifes, not worthy of his attention.”

“Still, even small flies get caught in webs.”

He chuckled. “Not if you’re small enough to fly between the strands. That’s what we’re doing.”

I sighed. “What’s our next action?”

“Wait for our next report. Here she comes now.”

Sal approached us, looking annoyed. She was wearing a dress, rather plain, of navy blue, and had a little hat with a veil stuck on her head at an alarming angle. She was stalking towards us, not like a modest young lady, but like a very angry one. I had never seen her in a dress and was so surprised that I almost didn’t recognise her.

“Shut yer mouth, Doc,” she said. “It’s me, all right?”

Holmes nodded at her. “How’d it go?”

“They said I might apply to be a matron at gaol, watching female criminals.” She scowled at Holmes. “I know you told me so, but why do you always have to be right?”

“Because Lestrade is right. One day they’ll have woman police, but somebody has to go first, break the barrier. Lestrade thinks that will be you, and I agree. But you can’t be a hot-head about it. Take the gaol position and do a capital job of it. Then, in a couple of years, when you’ve acquired a reputation, apply again. Scotland Yard needs women on the force, if for no other reason than that there are women criminals.”

She huffed and frowned, but finally said. “I know you’re right. And I need a job, so I might as well take one that will lead me where I want to go. It’s just— Anderson got in without a problem, and you know I’m smarter, faster, and stronger than that skinny Dick.”

“You are indeed. And Lestrade will do whatever he can. He’s seen how women are treated when arrested, and has often spoken out about it.” He became more businesslike. “Now, have you talked to your sister?”

Sal nodded. “I have. She and her girls are on board, ready to help. They’ll report to you through me.”

He nodded. “Very good. I’ll let you know anything I hear from my end.”

“Right. And I’m to tell you that Mrs Hudson needs some help this afternoon. The new upstairs tenants want shelves in the sitting room, and she asked if we could help put them up.”

“Sure.” I jumped up. “We’ll help.”

Holmes didn’t move. He had that faraway look he got when he was trying to think through some problem. “You go on. I need to think.”

Sal gave me a smile. “C’mon, Doc. Shall we?”

I looked at Holmes. “Do you need me to do anything?”

He smiled. “No, Watson. I just need to strategise. I’ll be there before dinner.”

Sal and I walked back to Baker Street. She was no longer taller than me, and I found this amusing. She glowered up at me. “You’re leaving then, too. Mrs Hudson said.”

“I was accepted at Edinburgh.”

“You’re going, of course. Holmes won’t forgive you if you turn it down.”

“It’s odd,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve never even thought of being anything besides a doctor, not since that first day I came to Baker Street. Never once.”

She smiled. “He’s just about busting his buttons that you’re finally going. He can’t stop bragging about you.”

“I won’t disappoint him.”

She gave me a canny look. “And don’t break his heart, neither.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You better not go finding some female to marry.”

I flushed bright red. “I’m not planning on it.”

“Good. I’ll say this just once, Doc. He really loves you, and that’s not an easy choice for a man to make, to love another man. He’s never cared what other people think about him, but he cares what they think about you. And about the only thing he’s afraid of is losing you.”

“He won’t lose me. I would never leave him.” I bit my lip. “I wish I didn’t have to go away.”

“But you do,” she said. “He wants it more than you do. If you love him, you have to go.”

We stood in front of 221B for a moment. “Thank you, Sal,” I said at last. “I’ll miss you. All of you. It’s funny, you know. All I looked forward to for years has been growing up, being an adult, and now all I can think of is all the adventures we’ve had— and how much I’d love to do it all again.”

She grinned. “Even falling through the floor of Number 179?”

“Even that,” I said. _I would do it again_, I thought. That was the moment when I knew my love was returned. That was when I became Damon to his Pythias.

Our patrols continued the same pattern, though it was usually just me and Holmes. We checked in with the neighbourhood boys, walked the perimeter of Marylebone. He was restless, impatient, like a bow pulled taut, searching for a target. He talked to many people in the area, but did not confide in me completely. Sometimes he sent me on errands, but these always seemed trivial. I felt that I was being kept busy.

I was sulking at the table, drinking a cup of tea and watching Mrs Hudson knead bread for rolls when he returned to Baker Street one afternoon.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing my arm and propelling me towards the basement stairs. “I’ve got a job.”

“What job?” I was feeling irritated because my errands had run aground once more. I felt I had nothing to contribute to our “project,” as he still referred to it.

“At the post office. I’m to be a telegram boy.”

I closed my mouth and frowned. “Great. That’s… that’s good.”

“It’s part of our project,” he said. “Not a real job.”

I shrugged, but could think of no words to say.

“You’re angry.” He was studying me, knowing my every gesture and expression. There was never anything I could hide from him.

I shrugged again. “You said it was _our_ project. Now it seems that I’m not to be trusted with the details. I’m only allowed to run fool’s errands, while you’re hip-deep into… whatever this is. Our _great adventure_.”

He sighed and flopped down on the bed. Mrs Hudson had forbidden him to smoke in the house after he started a small fire, so he just fiddled with his pipe. “You know the danger.”

“I do. And I hunger for danger, according to you. So why are you not telling me anything?”

“Well, first of all, I haven’t shared it all with anyone, not yet. I’ve just got feelers out, trying to gather intelligence at this point. The plan doesn’t exist yet.”

“You always used to talk things through with me.”

He nodded. “You’re right. I should tell you what I’m thinking.”

“And what’s the other thing? You said _first of all_, but you never said the rest of it.”

He stood and began to pace a bit nervously. “John. You’re going to school. I don’t want you to lose that opportunity. You might be hurt, or worse…”

Still angry, I recognised that he was truly concerned. “Come here,” I said, grabbing his hands. “Stop pacing and listen to me.”

“Oh, John,” he said and threw his arms around me. Holding me tight against his chest, he rocked back and forth, saying nothing. After several minutes, he whispered, “John.” His voice was rough, and I realised that he was crying.

“Nothing will happen to me,” I said. “We’ve been through things like this before and you always trusted me.”

“I know.”

“Please tell me what you’re planning, Sherlock. I promise I won’t do anything foolish or risky— as long as you don’t.”

Then he told me about the network he’d been creating, using telegram boys because they were protected, off limits to the gangs. Sally’s sister had found other prostitutes who were fed up with the gangs’ treatment of them and willing to spy on Moriarty’s men. “We’ve got people watching his people, so we know what they’re involved in, where they are. It’s just Moriarty himself that we can’t track. He talks through his lieutenants. I’m posing as a telegram boy, hoping to find out where he is. Once we have that information, Scotland Yard will have the knowledge to act quickly and decisively.”

“Let me help. I can be a telegram boy as easily as you. More easily, because I look younger.”

“I need you to keep an eye on the home front whilst I’m working. It’s important, John. We can’t ignore our Irregulars, or the businesses who rely on us.”

I agreed, only because he promised not to take any rash actions without telling me. And I suggested that he let Lestrade in on everything instead of waiting.

“Just a few more days,” he said. “I’ve already figured out who his lieutenants are. They all communicate with him in person, as far as I can tell. I’ve got a network of boys watching them, since I can’t have eyes on all of them all the time.”

I spent my days during the next week walking the streets of Marylebone, talking to people as we always had, keeping track of criminal activity and unknown persons.

At night we lay in bed, talking. “You need to be careful,” I said. “We’re being a bit conspicuous, I think, and if we don’t spring the trap soon... We need to tell Lestrade and then back away, let the Yard handle it.”

He nodded. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

The following day I was heading up Portland Street, having seen that our boys were out in the neighbourhoods and had nothing suspicious to report. I was about twenty minutes away from Baker Street by foot, trying to remember Holmes’ advice not to look like I was in a hurry. He complained that I had never mastered the art of appearing to be a loafer, which (he said) was the key to not drawing attention. “You look too military,” he said. “Try to look a bit less like you’re on a march.”

I nodded at the constable on the corner, a new one whose name I didn’t know. He approached me, smiling, and I assumed he’d been briefed on who I was.

“John Watson?” he called out.

“Good afternoon, Constable. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“James. Roderick James.”

“Everything all right?”

He nodded. “Any suspicious activity?”

I shook my head. “Seems as usual.”

He must have hit me on the head soon after that. Afterwards, I didn’t remember how that had happened.

I couldn’t tell whether it was day or night when I came to myself. My hands were tied together, and I was wearing both a gag and a blindfold. My head ached, from which I surmised a blow to the head. I lay there without moving, trying to learn something from my surroundings. I could hear men’s voices, muffled, from somewhere nearby. Maybe below. I was on the upper floor of some building.

I sniffed, trying to sort out various odours. Holmes had often pointed out that each neighbourhood has distinct smells. Even bakeries smell different from one another, if you pay attention. Hoffman’s had a bread made with currants and caraway seeds that was very popular, even outside Baker Street. Cooper’s, the engraving shop, always had an oily, machine smell, and was right next to Graves, the coffee importer.

I smelled water. Wherever I was, the building was near the river. Now that I recognised this, I could actually hear the water, so it must be close. I could hear the bells and horns of boats. _Maybe the dockyards_, I thought. For a man like Moriarty, an importer of many things, having a place here would make sense.

Lying still, I tried to catch words. One of the men laughed. I thought I heard the word _little. _Then I was sure I heard someone say _Holmes._

I had been kidnapped. My kidnapper had worn a police uniform. This meant either that he was posing as a cop, or that Moriarty had people in the police force. The latter seemed likely, and I wonder if Holmes had suspected this, too. While we trusted Lestrade, once we told him what we knew, he might pass it along to the wrong people. Even some of the constables we saw on our street daily might be involved. I cursed myself for being so trusting. Holmes had said that we were _small change,_ not worthy of Moriarty’s notice, the tiny flies that would slip through his web and eventually take him down. Now it seemed that the spider had noticed, and I was caught.

In just a few weeks, I was supposed to be leaving for Edinburgh. In my present position, that seemed unlikely. I thought of Holmes, wondered if he had noted my absence. Maybe someone had seen what happened to me, and he would come after me. This frightened me more than the idea that he might not find me. He was no match for Moriarty, just a kid going up against a criminal mastermind. The man had hundreds of people working for him, maybe thousands. I had learned not to underestimate the power of a group of determined Irregulars, but this situation seemed impossible.

If Moriarty was using me to get to Holmes, he wasn’t going to kill me yet. A kidnapping was always a message, Holmes said. It was meant to intimidate, to give an ultimatum. Moriarty was telling Holmes to back down.

Hearing the voices approach, I lay still and gave no sign that I was awake.

“Let’s see this bait,” a voice said as the door opened. A querulous voice, I thought. Not deep, a slight lilt. They called him the Irishman, I remembered.

My blindfold was snatched off and I blinked at the sudden light. The gag was removed. The room was mostly dark, and with the lantern shining in my eyes, I could not see their faces well. The man in front bent over to study me. “What’s this one?” he asked. “Who is he to Holmes?”

“Lieutenant,” said another voice. “He’s always with him. Except lately, this one goes about on his own since Holmes started working as a telegram boy.”

It was disappointing to see how easily they had seen through us. I wondered if we had inflicted any damage at all.

“Flies in the ointment,” said Moriarty, for that’s who I presumed the one in front was. I studied the face of the man we had been chasing so many weeks. He had a high forehead, dark hair and eyes that were particularly dead-looking. In the lantern’s light, I could tell he was a man of middle-age. Holmes said he’d studied mathematics, that he was a genius. I only saw that he was ruthless and not at all desperate.

“Will he come for this boy?” he asked.

“We’ll know soon. Sent word a couple hours ago.”

“Good. When he arrives, we’ll kill two birds with one stone.”

“We’re killing him?” another voice asked.

“Problem?” Moriarty straightened up, looking at the one who had spoken. “We have nothing to gain by letting them live. Killing them will not only rid us of this minor annoyance, it will send a message to the other _Irregulars_ as well.” He turned his attention on me once more. “Speak, insect. Will he come for you?”

My throat was parched. When I tried to speak, my voice came out raspy. “I… I don’t… know.”

Moriarty gave a small snort and turned away. I heard them going down the stairs.

I lay in the dark, my heart pounding. I’d been hoping Holmes would come for me, but now I feared he would fall into their trap and be killed. I wasn’t eager to die myself, but to think of Holmes dying as well was more than I could bear. I felt tears gather in my eyes, blurring my vision. Unable to wipe them away, I had no choice but to let them flow.

_Gather evidence_, I heard Holmes’ voice saying in my head. I paid attention to the sounds and smells, but there wasn’t much I could see in the darkness, even with a sliver of moonlight illuminating the floor. Instead, I remembered all the moments of my life since I’d come to Baker Street. I tried to recreate the frame of mind I’d been in when Lestrade had picked me up by the scruff, elevating my feet off the pavement. I recalled the feeling of security when Holmes slung his arm around me. I remembered waking at night and sensing his presence in the dark, worrying about me. _If you ever do anything so stupid again… _I thought of Molly and my unwarranted jealousy.

I imagined myself back at 221B, snuggling down under the quilt, hearing Prof and Dicky arguing about the card game. Sal, telling them to turn out the light. Wiggins laughing softly, asking what did it matter, when they were only betting pennies?

I felt Holmes’ arm around me, smelled his tobacco. We’d been reading Monsieur Lecoq, struggling through the French. I remembered falling asleep beside him, the safest I’d ever felt, knowing we would wake up in a few hours and find a new adventure. I put myself into this image and began to relax. I listened to the water and the bells of boats in the docklands.

It was not much later when I began to hear something else, a scraping sound on the wall outside. They hadn’t bothered to replace my blindfold, and from the position I lay in, I could see the window opening.

A head appeared in the window. When my eyes adjusted, I could see that it was Holmes. He held a finger to his lips, but no one needed to tell me the importance of silence now. Moriarty and his men were downstairs, waiting for him to arrive, thinking he could negotiate with him. They planned to kill him, and me as well. It encouraged me that Holmes had already figured this out, and I knew that he would have a plan to get out of this warehouse.

He knelt beside me and cut my ropes. When he pocketed the knife, I saw that he’d brought something else— a gun. Seeing my look, he shook his head. Gun in hand, he motioned for me to follow him. We moved slowly, listening to see if the floor creaked. If it did, the group downstairs did not notice it. When we got to the door, we paused, listening again.

This was one of the docklands warehouses, I’d decided, the Isle of Dogs. The room I was held in had contained a few wooden crates, but nothing else. I assumed that Holmes had scoped out the building, had seen the lantern in my window and knew where I was. Some warehouses had outside staircases, since fires were common in the dockyards. We might escape this way.

He opened the door slowly, looked outside, and then motioned towards a window on the river side of the building. When I looked down, I saw water directly below. This was his escape plan, then. I did not question him, though I would have been happier to see a staircase. We could both swim, and the distance to the water was no more than two storeys, the depth of the water enough to accommodate our dive.

In the darkness, we were both breathing heavily. I felt his hands on my arms. He looked into my eyes, saying nothing. Then he pulled me close and kissed me. I felt his heart pounding, just as mine was. “John,” he whispered. “I haven’t forgotten my oath. I will always love you.”

I understood then what his plan was, and I was more afraid than I’d ever been. He knew our escape was a long shot, a risky chance we had to take. As he held me, I realised that he would sacrifice himself for me.

“No,” I whispered back. “We’ll jump together. You won’t leave me.”

We heard steps on the stairs. He pushed me towards the window, urging me to swing my legs through. “Jump!” he hissed.

He had the gun in his hand, aimed at the stairs.

“Come now, Holmes! We’ll jump together! I’m not going without you!”

He reached towards me, pushed me through the window. As I fell towards the water, I heard gunshots. Hitting the water, I plunged into blackness where everything was muffled for a moment. As I surfaced, I could hear more shots being fired. Looking up at the window above me, I saw Holmes, one leg over the sill, firing into the warehouse. Another shot, and he fell. Toppling backwards from the window, he sprawled, plummeting towards the water.

For a moment time seemed to freeze, and I saw him suspended above me, like a dark angel, his arms open as if he might simply take flight. _I am your Pythias._

I saw him hit the water and go under.

Strokingtowards the spot where I’d seen him sink, I thought, _Don’t be hit, don’t be—_

They were still firing at us. I dove and groped around for Holmes. In a moment, I had him. I held him to me and waited. _Let them think they had hit us_.

Still underwater, I swam away from shore, into the waterway. When I could hold my breath no longer, I kicked towards the surface, still holding Holmes pressed to my chest.

I gasped for air. Holmes gasped as well, and my heart, frozen in fear, began to beat again.

“Are you all right?” I asked. “Did they hit you?”

“John,” he gasped.

Then, by the lights of the dockyards, I saw the blood on his shirt.

“Holmes, I can pull you to shore. The police will be there by now— surely someone has heard the shots and called out for help.”

He smiled. “My Damon. You must not die for me.”

A bullet whizzed by our heads. Moriarty’s men must have been watching and had now spotted us. Holmes suddenly pushed away from me and began to swim downstream, following the current. Bullets flew through the air, slicing through the water. I began to follow him, my arms and legs still stiff from the ropes that had bound me. I saw him stroking through the water, a swift, strong swimmer in spite of his wounds. I called to him, knowing he would not stop. He could not wait for me, and I was in danger as well. They fired more rounds at us. I dove beneath the surface as I saw Holmes do the same. I swam in his direction, though it was too dark to make anything out under the water.

When I surfaced, I could see that Scotland Yard had arrived and were surrounding the warehouse. Moriarty’s men had turned their guns on the police, who were returning fire. Surrounded by the Thames, I looked around, frantically trying to catch sight of Holmes. I swam in the direction I’d last seen him dive, moving my numb arms and legs until I could move them no more, and realised at last that no one could stay under water so long. He would not resurface.

I was pulled from the water by a constable in time to see them bring Moriarty and his men out of the warehouse in cuffs.

Lestrade came running to where I stood, still watching the water.

“Holmes went with the current!” I cried. “He’s hurt— you must look for him!”

“We are,” he said, wrapping a blanket around me. “We’ll find him, John.”

“You must,” I wept. “Oh, God— he’ll die!”

He instructed another policeman to take me to the station and wait for him to return, and then began walking downstream.

I sat in the station for hours. Someone brought me tea, and I took a few sips. I could not sleep, could not eat, even though it had been hours since I’d done either. I could not remember the last time I’d prayed, but I did pray then, and meant it.

As the sun rose, Lestrade returned. He did not smile when he saw me. He came towards me with his shoulders bowed, his face weary with the words he must speak.

Sitting down beside me, he took my hand. “John.”

“No— no— you found him! You must have— he’s a strong swimmer— you pulled him out and he was fine! He opened his eyes and he said—” I began to sob. “He’s not dead…”

“I’m sorry. We didn’t find him. We’ll keep looking, but…” He could not look at me.

Now they were only looking for his body, was what he meant.

At Baker Street, I slept alone in our bed.

The front page of the newspaper the following day recounted the raid of the warehouse and the arrest of Moriarty and his gang. Lestrade was given top billing.

Several pages in, a small headline read: _Man, 19, Drowned in Thames._


	9. As Inevitable as Gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, reunion.

They never found his body.

I left London as soon as I was able, my life there over. My grief was bottomless. Over and over, I saw him plunging towards the water, submerged in the Thames. I remembered the feel of his body as we floated together, our cold arms around each other. His last words echoed in my mind.

_You must not die for me._

I hadn’t died, and that was what he wanted. I had to live now, without him, finding my way into a future where he would only be a shadow following me.

_My Pythias, my dark angel, child of the night_.

Mrs Hudson saw to outfitting me for university, making sure I had enough pants and vests and socks, mending my trousers and jackets. Lestrade took me to buy books and a new pair of shoes, and Wiggins gave me a proper haircut. The merchants of Baker Street gave me a fountain pen and a pocket watch.

On the day I left, I stood in our old room, looking at everything for the last time. I’d packed _The Murders in the Rue Morgue_, the first book I had ever read, and _Monsieur Lecoq_, which Holmes had used to teach us French. Someday, he said, we would go there and see the Rue Morgue. We would speak French and drink champagne and look up at the stars. I might do that someday, but not yet. Not yet.

I said goodbye to Mrs Hudson. She cried a bit, clinging to me. The Irregulars were gone from Baker Street and she felt as if her children had all graduated into life. All but one.

My next chapter would be in Edinburgh, as a student of medicine. I had little enthusiasm for it now, but Holmes had wanted it. The day he met me, he’d said, _You’re going to be a doctor._ It wasn’t a prophecy, he said, or a wish. It was a deduction. Who was I to doubt him, when he’d been right about me in every other way? I would do my best, and hope that it was enough.

Any deficiencies I had as a student I made up for by doubling my study time, redoubling my efforts. I remembered Holmes making me read aloud, his patient corrections, his explanations of what I didn’t understand_._ The first story was a painful struggle; by the second, I could see my efforts paying off. Thanks to him, I became a good reader. And he was right. As a reader, the entire world might now be open to me. In the pages of books, I could learn anything I wanted to learn, just as he had.

He was my greatest teacher. I had always believed that talented people didn’t have to work hard; he proved me wrong. He was the most brilliant mind I have ever known, but he worked constantly at expanding his knowledge. He was, at nineteen, already a fine detective. Had he lived, I knew he would have been eminent in that field, or any other he chose to put his efforts into. People would have come to him for help, their last hope, when ordinary men had failed. He was the best and wisest man I have ever known.

For me, the tragedy was too personal to weep over what the world had lost. I wept for myself, for the life I would now spend alone. There would never be another love for me like Holmes. He was my first, and I was certain no other could stir my heart as he did. The thought of spending my life with anyone else, someone who had not grown up on Baker Street, who hadn’t walked patrol at night, who hadn’t lain in bed, studying French and solving crimes— this was impossible.

I did not keep in touch with any of the Irregulars after my first semester of university. Mike wrote me once to say that he was still studying anatomy, now doing dissections at Bart’s, and that he planned to teach. He said that Molly had finished nursing school but had learned of another woman, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who had obtained a medical degree in Paris and returned to London to campaign for women’s right to be physicians. As a result of her efforts, a law had been passed, and Molly was now a student at the London School of Medicine for Women, where Elizabeth Blackwell was one of her teachers.

Dicky was on the beat, a constable with the Yard. Sal had waged a long battle to join the police, arguing that women constables were needed, as there were women prisoners. While I was still at university, I read in the newspaper that she had become the first female officer at Scotland Yard. It took her two years, but she succeeded with the support of Lestrade and others, setting an example for other women.

I heard from Mrs Hudson soon after I arrived in Edinburgh. Her news was sad; Billy Wiggins had been killed. He’d tried to stop some young thugs from robbing a man, and was stabbed. I wrote her a card at Christmas, but then fell out of the habit of staying in contact. I had no news worth repeating, just more classes, more studies as I progressed towards my goal. I thought of them always, but my memories would not let me come back. A silence widened between us.

When I finished my degree, I deliberated about establishing myself in practice. Since I’d first sat in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen listening to Holmes deduce, I’d thought of being a doctor, but going into a practice, working at a surgery or hospital, had never been part of that plan. Holmes had said I’d be his partner, and we would solve crimes together. That had been my dream— our dream. To serve as a general practitioner, treating rashes, bunions, and dyspepsia, was a compromise I could not make.

I watched as my classmates sought positions or scraped money together to buy out the practice of a retiring physician. They looked for suitable wives, sensible women who did not crave fine things, women who might produce children and run a comfortable home.

This was what people expected of young men, to become husbands and fathers, and I could see myself drawn in that direction simply because the tide was pulling that way and I did not know what else to do. It would be an ordinary, pale life compared to what I had planned, though, and I wanted no part of it. I would drift, and be unhappy. It felt like a betrayal of all I had believed in and worked for,a loss of faith in my greatest love.

Holmes was right about me. I did not want a tame existence, an expected life. That was not what he had saved me for. I wanted danger and adventure, to risk my life saving others. He had seen this the first night we walked patrol together, when I ran at the burglar. That was what my heart wanted— that danger, that adventure. We had always talked about places we would travel to— Australia, Africa, India. I would leave England, I decided. I followed my desires and joined the army as a surgeon, shipping out to India at once.

By the time I arrived in Bombay, war had broken out in Afghanistan, and my regiment, the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, had already advanced through the passes into enemy territory. I followed with other officers who were in the same situation, and reached Candahar safely, rejoining my regiment. The military life agreed with me, and I considered how Holmes would have loved hearing me tell my adventures. This was my promise to him, made once I knew he had sacrificed himself for me: to live the life he had lost, to have the adventures he would have led me on, and never shy away from danger. Sometimes at night, when I was missing him, I would tell him my stories, and imagine the questions he would ask me. He would not leave me; I kept him close.

I was wounded at Maiwand, shot in the shoulder and in the leg. These injuries were enough to have me sent home, but while I was recovering at the base hospital in Peshawar, I was stricken with enteric fever and nearly died. There is not much to say about that time because I don’t remember much of it. Weak and dispirited, I was sent back to England on the troopship Orontes. When we docked at Portsmouth a month later, there was no one to greet me. I felt as alone as I had all those many years ago, slipping out the window of the mill and running across the countryside towards a future I could not see. As then, I now thought not of happiness, but only of continued existence.

I was released with half a pension to sustain me. Income was needed. My first thought was to return to Edinburgh, where it would be cheaper to live. I knew a few people there who might help me get settled and start a practice. London drew me, though, as it draws all loungers and idlers of the Empire. Though my health was ruined, many weeks of being an invalid had made me feel useless, and I wondered if an opportunity might be found there. If my existence was to be comfortless and meaningless, it did not matter where I existed.

It had been eight years since I'd been in London. Eight years since I'd lost Holmes, and I felt no closer to being over it. My memories of battle and death had become another layer of grief, but when I woke at night in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, I was not seeing comrades dying in the desert, I was seeing Holmes sinking out of sight below the waters of the Thames, where his bones no doubt still lay.

* * *

I’m standing in Piccadilly Circus, just off a train from Southampton. I’ve cashed my first pension cheque, and am intent on having an extravagant lunch at a restaurant I can’t afford— my last personal indulgence before acknowledging my impoverishment. The Criterion, a place I never could have afforded in my past life, is my choice. Holmes used to promise me that someday we’d have lunch there, once I’d graduated and become a full-fledged doctor.

I enter and find the place packed, end up standing at the bar, leaning on my cane, to wait for a table. As I’m drinking my whisky and soda, I hear a familiar voice calling my name.

“John Watson!” Approaching me through the crowd is my old friend Mike Stamford, the Prof, grinning with surprise. “Doc!”

Memories threaten to overwhelm me. I steady myself, wondering if this has all been a mistake. In Edinburgh there would be fewer ghosts, fewer keen memories to catch me unawares. But the sight of a friendly face is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man, and as I stand striving with my emotions, I have never felt lonelier, or more glad to see an old friend. Putting aside my regrets and nostalgia, I greet him with joy.

“Professor!” I cry. “Or I should say Stamford, I suppose. I hardly expected to see a familiar face today— what have you been doing with yourself?”

He grins and shakes my hand. “You may call me Prof, since I now may claim the proper credentials for that nickname. I’m at London University, teaching anatomy. So good to see you, Doc. May I buy you some lunch?”

I happily accept his invitation and we ask for a table. Once we are seated, we study one another. He is the same, a bit stouter than the boy with the broken spectacles. I suppose I look different now as well.

He smiles, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it’s you, Doc. Whenever I see the old gang, we always ask one another about you. I suppose I can legitimately call you Doctor Watson now. Last I heard, you were still at medical school, but you must have graduated some years ago now. Have you been in practice?” he asks. “Surely not— you’re as thin as a lath and brown as a nut.” He gestures at my cane. “And what’s this about? Have people been shooting at you?”

“They have. You may call me Doc, and Captain as well. I’ve been abroad for three years with Her Majesty’s Army, being shot at by murderous Ghazis. As you can see, they got me.” I do not mention that my career is over, my arm not steady enough to perform surgery.

“Poor devil!” he says. But he does not humiliate me by asking more about it. He tells me about Anderson and Donovan and their work with Lestrade, who is still investigating murders. He tells me that Molly has finished medical school and has opened a practice with another woman in Cardiff.

“Will you be staying in London?,” he asks. “Or will you return to Edinburgh?”

“I haven't decided. To be honest, I don’t know if… if I can live here again. And how am I to afford London on eleven shillings sixpence a day? I might do better to return to Edinburgh, where living is less expensive.”

“Ah, you only need a flatmate, my friend. I might introduce you to someone, if you are so inclined.”

Having no other options, I have no objections.

“We’ll go and see Mrs Hudson, then. She has a new lodger who needs someone to share the rent.”

“Mrs Hudson? Is she well, then?” I think she must be really elderly now, since she seemed old when I was a child.

“At seventy, she is a wonder who never seems to age. Has a few helpers these days, young neighbourhood kids who run errands and such.” He laughs. “Irregulars, like us.”

I am reluctant to see Baker Street again, but having run into Stamford, I know it cannot be avoided. As we get off the train at the Baker Street station, I feel a painful nostalgia rush over me. It is a wound that will ache intermittently, but never heal. Perhaps I will return to Edinburgh, after all, I think.

But memories do not reside in a place only, or in the past. Mine are like ghosts I can never banish, because to do so would be to forget Holmes, something I can never do. Wherever I go, he will still be part of me.

Prof leads me through the front door, calling out, “Mrs Hudson! A new recruit!”

She is older, but still energetic, walking well in spite of the hip I remember her complaining about. Her hair is whiter now, but the red braids still wind around her head, and her eyes sparkle. Seeing me, she cries out, “John!” and flies to me, enveloping me in a floury hug, depositing many kisses on my cheeks. Tears in her eyes, she holds me at arm’s length and examines me. “Oh, my boy. Look at you.”

I hold out my hands, smiling. “They’re clean, Ma’am.”

Looking at Stamford, she raises her eyebrows in a question. He shakes his head slightly.

“I think he might get on with your new lodger, Mrs H. Don’t you agree?”

She wipes her eyes with her apron. “I don’t know. He’s an eccentric sort. Odd hours, but generally quiet.”

“Oh, well,” I say. “I’m probably not the easiest flatmate. But necessity makes strange bedfellows—” I pause, remembering our old bed in the downstairs flat. My throat tightens, and I struggle against my feelings. I feel the pain of his loss all over, remember the night I came back and slept alone in that bed. But it will not do to weep now, not when they are so happy to see me, so willing to welcome me back.

As I grope for words, I hear footsteps on the stairs. Mrs Hudson looks up, smiling. Stamford is grinning as well. As I hear the steps coming towards us, I turn to get a look at the new lodger, for that’s who I assume it is.

I draw in a sudden breath. _Sherlock Holmes._

He is older, of course. A man nearing thirty now, still tall and lanky, but no longer gangly. He is in shirtsleeves, rolled up to his elbows, and bits of plaster are stuck on his hands, no doubt the result of chemical burns from the experiments he loves.

I think he is surprised to see me. “Hello, John.” His voice is soft, his smile a bit shy, as if he is uncertain of my reaction.

I cannot speak. A grey mist swirls around me, and and when it clears, hands are loosening my collar-ends. Then I feel his arms around me, holding me to his chest.

“Pull up a chair for him, Stamford,” he says. “You’ve played a rather foul trick on his nerves, I dare say. Unnecessarily dramatic. Clearly he did not know of my return.”

I feel myself being lowered into a chair, a glass of brandy pushed to my lips.

“Swallow,” the familiar voice says. “My dear doctor, a thousand apologies. Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I gasp. When my vision clears, I see him kneeling at my feet, his hand holding my wrist. My eyes fill.

“You’re not fine, Watson. Your pulse is going like a machine gun. You’re breathing like a drowning man and you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I have.” I reach out to touch him then, wanting to feel his warmth. My hand rests on his cheek.

Mrs Hudson sets a cup of tea in front of me. “Poor John. When you arrived, I just didn’t think. You’ve been gone, and none of us knew anything about you. I assumed you knew about Sherlock.”

Stamford nods. “We would have told you, but none of us knew how to get in touch with you.”

“How long?” I ask, hardly able to believe my eyes. “When did you return?”

“Just six months ago.”

“Where have you been?”

He smiles. “That story will wait a bit. Your colour has returned now, and your pulse is steadier. I mentioned to Stamford just this morning that I was considering a flatmate, and here he is with you in tow. I assume that means you’ll consider moving in.” He cocks his head at me uncertainly.

My eyes are still flowing, but I can only grin. “I should like nothing better. But first, you must explain how you are back from the dead so I can be sure I won’t be living with a ghost.” I am still quite shaky, but with Mrs Hudson and Stamford staring at us, I do not give into my impulse, which is to kiss him.

“I’ll be off then, Mrs H,” Stamford says, nodding at her. “Good to have you back, Watson. We’ll catch up in bit, once you’re found your feet here in London.”

Mrs Hudson returns to the task of kneading a mound of bread. “Make yourself at home, John,” she says. “Have a look at the flat. I’m quite certain Sherlock will forget that you need to eat and sleep, so please ask for what you want.”

Holmes pulls me to my feet. Taking my hand, he leads me up the stairs. Once we are both inside, he closes the door. For a moment he stands facing the door, then turns, the shy smile on his face once more.

“Well, Doctor.” He rubs his hands together nervously. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yes,” I agree. The strangeness between us feels almost worse than seeing him sink beneath the waves. I am not sure where we stand with one another, and cannot find words to say what is in my heart. “Eight years is a long time.”

He nods soberly. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”

I do not need to ask him how he knows. Perhaps it’s my tan, ending at my cuffs, or my posture, or my haircut, or the limp I can’t hide— or all of these things. When I first met him, it seemed like magic, and now, though it is no less magical, I can see how he might have conjured a conclusion.

“You’ve been wounded,” he goes on, his face more grave now. “And ill. Maiwand, I would say. Your right leg, and your left shoulder. You’ve improved, but are still in some pain.”

I nod. “What else do you perceive?”

“You’re angry with me.”

“No, Holmes. How could I be so ungrateful?” I hold out my hand; it trembles. “I’ve kept my promise.” My throat tightens again, reducing me to a whisper. “Even after death.”

“Even after death.” He takes my hand.

We stand there for a long moment, regarding one another with trepidation, neither of us knowing what comes next. Finally, I can’t wait any longer. Stepping towards him, I push him against the door and kiss him.

I feel his shock at first, as if he expected something else after the push. Then he relaxes and pulls me into an embrace, still kissing me. “Oh, John,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sherlock, please. Tell me everything.” I am weeping now, my head on his shoulder, my tears dampening his shirt. “To see you again, to hold you, feels like a dream, and I don’t want to wake up.”

He kisses me once more, lightly touching his lips to my eyes, stopping my tears, then leads me to sit in a chair in front of the fireplace, facing another chair which is piled with books and papers. He grins again. “If we sit on the sofa together, there will be no _telling_, only _kissing_.”

After clearing his chair, he puts the kettle on and makes us tea because, as he says, “Two English gentlemen cannot sit and have a conversation without it. Either that, or a glass of port, but it’s too early in the day for that.”

_Gentlemen_, I think. Two grubby boys all grown up. I watch his movements, observing the lanky grace I remember, listening to him hum and talk to himself as he locates milk and sugar and spoons. He remembers the milk in mine, and drops two teaspoons of sugar in his own. “That’s better,” he says, smiling at me.

We blow on our tea and sip cautiously. I wait for him to begin.

“Start with that night,” I suggest. “When we jumped into the river.”

He nods. “Right. Obviously, I didn’t drown. I was wounded, but not seriously— just a flesh wound, but it bled a lot. Barely left a scar. I stayed under the water, hoping they would think they had hit me. Moriarty’s men were aiming for me, but I was afraid they’d hit you. They would only give up if they thought I’d drowned. By the time I surfaced, I’d been carried farther downstream. I could see them pulling you out, so I felt sure you were safe.”

Dazed, I shake my head. “I can scarcely remember. I think Lestrade brought me to the station. He came back later to say that they hadn’t found you. None of it seemed real. Did he know you were alive?”

“He did. But he knew that Moriarty’s organisation was not broken, and I would be in danger if he knew I had survived. We made the decision then and there to go after his lieutenants.”

“Why did you not tell me? I would have gone with you,” I say. “You know I would!”

“Because you were leaving for Edinburgh in two weeks. I couldn’t take that opportunity away from you.”

“All right, but why did you not contact me to let me know you were alive?”

“Yes, you are angry.” His smile is a bit sad. “I thought you might be. That question might be best answered by Lestrade, who insisted on the secrecy. While we were chasing Moriarty’s thugs around London that summer, he’d been working on the organisational aspects of the case. In the end, he got a nice promotion out of it, and now works on international cases as well as domestic. You see, Moriarty wasn’t just a common criminal. He had ties to criminal outfits in Europe and the Balkans. Illegal imports, drugs, prostitution. Almost any crime you can name, he had a finger in it. I wasn’t joking when I told you he was a major crime lord. Eliminating him has plucked the spider from its web. Because we were thorough, nobody has taken his place.”

_The best summer ever_, I think._ The two of us against the rest of the world_. I remember his excitement over what I thought was just another gang leader. “So you had to pretend you’d died. That was Lestrade’s idea?”

“It was. After he’d pulled me out of the drink, he asked me if I was willing to play dead for a while. Dead, I could do things that Sherlock Holmes could not do alive, things that Scotland Yard couldn’t do. He’d been thinking about sending agents under cover to root out the key players, and wanted me to help. Dangerous, I know, but as I saw it, the alternative was likely to get me killed. In return, he promised me an education, if that was what I wanted. I didn’t, and made a counteroffer, to pay for your education, and to accept me as a colleague when I came back. He agreed. I went abroad, thinking it would all be over in a few months. It took nearly five years. By that time, nobody knew where you were. You’d finished your medical degree, I learned. But there seemed to be no one who knew where you’d gone after graduating. Eventually I looked for you in military records and found that you’d shipped out to India, and that your regiment had gone to Afghanistan.”

“You might have written,” I say. “Soldiers do get letters, you know.”

“I know. But what would you have felt, getting a letter from a man you’d thought dead for years? You would have dismissed it as a cruel joke. No, I knew that I had to see you in person. When I heard you and Stamford enter the house, I assumed that he and Mrs Hudson had prepared you for my appearance. Rather cruel of them to let you be surprised like that.”

“So, you spent five years abroad, chasing down Moriarty’s confederates, and six months ago you returned to London. What happened between those two things?”

“I was in Paris, at the University.” He flushes a bit. “I told you French would eventually come in handy.”

I laugh. “You? A student? I thought you weren’t cut out for the academic life.”

“Yes, me. There are quite a number of scientists— chemists, geologists, psychologists— who are inventing a new science, criminology. They accepted me as a colleague, John! Me, Sherlock Holmes, the street Arab, the Irregular, the boy who used to consort with pickpockets and cadge cigarettes off of constables— lecturing to men older than me in a language I taught myself by reading a detective novel!” He laughs out loud.

“The boy who taught himself to read,” I answer. “The boy who learned chemistry from books and practical experience, and psychology by observing people. The boy who taught me how to learn and insisted that I become a doctor. You taught me to make deductions as well, and as I once deduced, you have risen to the top of your field, outshining all your teachers.”

He smiles. “I’ve met someone, you know.”

“Someone?” My heart freezes in my chest. _How could he kiss me like that, forgetting to mention that there was someone else?_

“My brother.” His smile broadens into a grin.

“Your brother?” I remember him telling me about the brother who’d been shipped off to another relative after their parents’ deaths.

“Mycroft Holmes. He was working at the embassy in Paris. Someone told him about me, and he looked me up. An interesting fellow, quite brilliant.”

“More brilliant than you?”

“Possibly.” He shrugs, still smiling. “He’s a bit of an arse, though, not as charming as me. He didn’t know what had become of me after Uncle Rudy died, but had gotten a job running messages for some government chap who decided he had promise. Got a scholarship to Eton, then Oxford, and then went into public service, sponsored by said benefactor. He’s back in London now, doing things for the government that he isn’t allowed to discuss.”

“And what does he think of you?”

“He finds me a bit rough, I’m afraid. Took me shopping for a proper suit, introduced me to people. I felt rather like an imposter. God, you should have seen me, John!” He laughs. “Speaking French to cab drivers, drinking champagne with barons and viscounts, hobnobbing with Professors of Whatnot and Doctors of Dangly Doodah.”

“I wish I could have seen that,” I smile at his amusement.

“And you,” he says, sobering. “Captain Watson.”

I shake my head. “As was. And I’m not a practicing surgeon, either.” I raise my arm as far as my shoulder.

“Let me see.”

With his assistance, I unbutton my shirt, revealing the ugly scar covering the damage that ended my career. “They did what they could, but my hand shakes too much for surgery now.”

He kneels down before me, touching the scar gently with his fingers. I understand what he’s doing. If there were a scar on his body that would explain why he is still alive, I would want to touch it as well.

“John,” he says, laying his head in my lap. “Will you forgive me?”

I run my hand through his curls. “There’s nothing to forgive, my love. After everything, we’re here, together.”

“You won’t go back to Edinburgh, then?”

“No. I don’t know what I’m fit for now, but I draw a little pension and can help out with the rent. Mrs Hudson deserves that, at least.”

“I have a proposition for you,” he says. “Lestrade is still working for the Yard, a bit greyer than you remember him, but he’s a bigwig now. Inspector Lestrade. And my credentials are impressive enough that he’s asked me to be a consultant for the Yard. I’m a consulting detective. Remember? I told you that’s what I’d be. Lestrade has already invited me to help him solve a few crimes. I’m good at it.” He grins.

“‘Course you are. The world’s only consulting detective.”

“And you’re going to be my partner.”

“Partner?”

He holds a hand up. “Stop that train of thought, my boy. You’re about to say that you’re not smart enough, you’ve got a bum leg and a dodgy shoulder, that you’re not strong enough, brave enough, fast enough, tall enough— not _enough._ Bollocks! Your entire life belies that premise, from the day you ran away from that horrible mill to the day you got off the ship that brought you home from the war. You’re brave, relentless, clever, and educated in all the things we’ll need.” He leans forward, intent. “_We_, John. We belong together, the two of us, doing this work. This is what we’re made for, what everything in our lives has led to. Will you do it? No,I’m not asking, I’m _telling_ you— You _will_. I won’t accept any other answer.”

I sit there, smiling at him.

He frowns a bit. “Say something.”

“What is there to say? You’ve already got your answer. I have only one question about our partnership.”

“What’s that?”

“Will we be needing two bedrooms?”

He bursts out laughing.

Later that night I awake to find him wrapped around me, as he used to do when we slept in the basement. I feel warm and happier than I’ve felt in so long. We had dinner with Mrs Hudson, then climbed the stairs to our flat, made unhurried love in our bed, and talked for hours.

“This moustache,” he says, petting it with his finger. “I think it’s my favourite thing about the new Doctor Watson. God, John, you were such a beautiful boy, I didn’t think you could become any handsomer, but look at you—” He runs his hands down my back, over my buttocks. “After all this time, I hardly dared hope you would still want me.”

“I promised,” I remind him. “And even if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you now.”

He sighs and lays his head on my chest. “That’s good to know. I was a bit worried that you’d go and fall in love with a woman. Surely there must have been fair maidens throwing themselves at you. A doctor _and_ a captain. How many females were there?”

“Oh, dozens. A hundred, at least. They used to fight over who would walk with me on Sundays. Two came to blows over trimming my cigar for me. Another begged to monogram my handkerchiefs. And there were others who clamoured to lick my boots.”

“You jest, but I’m serious, Watson. You could walk down Baker Street right now, and be trailed home by a pack of eligible females. I had many nightmares about it.”

“Tut, Holmes. You know I belong to you. Even when I thought you dead, I was sure that a woman would be a pale substitute.” I run my fingers through his curls. They are shorter and less unruly now. “And what about you? Were you not the toast of Paris? Did the fine comtes and barons not offer their daughters to you?”

“Well, no. I was introduced to a few ladies, but French women are nothing to you, Watson. They are skinny and pale, eat and drink poetry and painting. They find Englishmen dull, policemen and detectives vulgar. No marriages were suggested to me, nor did I extend any offers.”

“Were you lonely?”

“Dreadfully.”

“I wish I had been with you. I never intended to involve myself in a war and get shot, you know.”

“My Watson, always in love with danger.”

“No, I’m in love with you.”

This declaration demands more kissing. Before we become too impassioned, he pulls back and looks at me seriously.

“You know, Watson, that our kind are not well-regarded. If we are to survive, we must be discreet. Are you certain that you are willing to take all the risks that being together will surely bring?”

“Completely. I’m not giving you up. We can be careful.”

A telegram at breakfast brings us to a crime scene, where I see Sal and Dicky and Lestrade. I watch as Holmes scouts for clues and unravels the entire mystery in a half hour. I am invited to examine several bullet wounds and declare a time of death for the unfortunate victim, and begin to see a future for a broken army surgeon with a limp.

They promise to come by 221B for dinner, whenever Mrs Hudson feels she can prepare a worthy feast.

We walk back to Baker Street as the sun is hanging low in the sky. There is too much to fit into my brain all at once. I tuck my hand into the crook of Holmes’ sinewy arm and silently enjoy the feeling of being back home.

“This is like the old days,” he says. “There were many moments when I longed for this, but could scarcely imagine I would ever walk down this street again. I worried constantly about you, that Moriarty might have associates here in London still who might go after you. Lestrade assured me that he would prevent that, and eventually the gang who remained was rooted out through his efforts. My own efforts helped to bring down a large international crime syndicate.”

I again wish that I had been there with him.

As if reading my mind, he turns to me, smiling. “It was dangerous, but not nearly the brilliant adventure I’d anticipated. I’m glad I am not a policeman.” He laughs. “And now, dear Watson, we are both free to devote our lives to examining all those interesting little problems which London presents to us.”

We continue our leisurely walk.As we reach Baker Street, the last of the light is fading. “Come along, Watson,” he says, pulling the front door open. He bounds up the stairs, and I limp behind. At the landing he turns, remembering my infirmity, and holds out his hand. I take it and follow him up to 221B.

But he doesn’t open the door. Instead, he starts up the attic stairs into the lumber room. There is a small window that opens onto the roof, where we’d often sat on summer evenings, looking at the stars. Now he launches himself through it and onto the roof; I climb more carefully, afraid my weak leg might surprise me.

The window is angled with the roof, and he keeps his hand on me to steady me. As I cautiously arrange myself beside him, I already know what we were here to see.

The horizon is red, the sun now having sunk beneath. Above, stars are beginning to peek out through the dirty sky. In Afghanistan, I’d realised how many stars there were, and how much more brightly they shine in the desert than in the industrial fog of London. I’d found our stars there, two bright neighbours that are part of some constellation whose name I’ve never learned. It doesn’t matter. To us, they are Damon and Pythias, two lovers separated by space and time, but still traveling together across the night.

He points. “There they are.”

“And here we are.” I lean against him, still marvelling at the events that have brought us back together. “Even after death.”

He slips his arms around me and kisses me. The stars watch, but no one else sees.

* * *

Epilogue

Holmes became celebrated for his skill as a detective, consulting with Lestrade and others at Scotland Yard for many years. He built a practice that became the last hope of many people, and was internationally known. I chronicled our adventures, which were published in the Strand and other magazines.

We continued to live at 221B Baker Street for all those years, solving mysteries small and large. Every couple of years we would go to Paris for a few weeks, practicing our French and enjoying the more liberal atmosphere where men like us could be ourselves.

A new century began and when we started to feel our age, we decided to retire, while there was still time to travel and enjoy life. Holmes had developed an interest in bees, and I had always thought of writing books. By then we had enough income to buy a cottage in the Sussex Downs and settle in, he as a beekeeper, and I still writing.

After so many years together, the pain of those eight years has faded, and I can see the trajectory of our lives with more clarity. I have always felt that we were destined to meet, two stars moving in tandem, gravity keeping us paired. One way or another, destiny would always bring us together. If my parents had not died, if I hadn’t run away from the mill, if I hadn’t found myself on Baker Street one day, my hand in a copper’s pocket— even so, there would have been some other, later meeting. It could have happened in any number of ways, but it is certain that it would have happened. We were as inevitable as gravity.


End file.
